In general, I prefer related topics. Often AI is really helpful in showing related discussions, like related feature requests. I often look at these to suggest a merge, update them with new information (e.g., when a feature was completed), or at least tag those old topics accordingly. Sometimes I can find answers to support questions directly in the related topic because the question has been asked before.
Suggested topics are based on my unread topics. They are helpful to find topics I might want to continue reading, but they are not related to the topic I am currently reading. I used to read those topics based on latest. So actually, until February, that list was empty for me most of the time, so I only had suggested topics tab below topics. Now that I mostly read without being logged in, that’s no longer the case. Most topics shown there are topics I’ve read, but Discourse doesn’t know that. I am still forced to look at them because every time I log out, Discourse deletes the localStorage where it saved that I prefer related topics. So usually those are what I see because it’s not always worth switching. But these are, of course, problems based on my perhaps unusual use.
In general, I see use cases for both, my unread topic and other topic with similar content. Related topics based on AI instead of category was a huge improvement. It made them way more interesting.
But of course, it depends on the topic. The more detailed the problem is described, the better the suggestions are. To me, it makes sense that the suggestions below the welcome topic aren’t that helpful, because there aren’t several welcome topics on Meta.
I wondered whether, if you think they are confusing, it would make sense to hide these from new users, just as Discourse does not display other options to new users and therefore shows things that are hidden for more experienced users. But I think, apart from the welcome topic, they can be helpful for new users too because sometimes they find the answer to their question right there.