>The alternative is, literally, a complete stranger, with no track record, unknown motives, and (as the recent hacks showed) doesn't have the skillset to keep your information secure anyways.
That's not the only alternative. Another is, literally, me, someone I know very well, with a lifetime track record that I'm intimately familiar with, known motives and the skillset to keep my information secure.
It's called "hosting your own instance."
And it doesn't stop me from following users on other instances, nor does it require me to accept the TOS of other instances either.
That said, I'm not interested in juicing my "follower" count or building/enhancing my "brand," nor am I interested in doing so for others.
That's the alternative. And when someone comes up with an AP hub that can interact with other AP instances like an email client (my Thunderbird[0] can talk smtp, pop3, IMap, xmpp, Matrix, nntp and more) that's a viable alternative for the hoi polloi. Until then, more technical folks like myself can just roll their own.
I don't really care what most other people say anyway, including (well, especially) "influencers", celebrities, politicians, advertisers and other scum of the earth.
So I'll just follow whoever I want to follow from my own AP instance. Or not, if I choose not to federate with other instances.
[0] https://www.thunderbird.net/
Edit: Added the missing link.
