I want to believe federated systems can work even with extreme asymmetries in participants. I think if federated systems can’t, they’re forever doomed to obscurity.
Don’t get me wrong: obscurity has its benefits. Mastodon feels a lot like 2010 Twitter, and I love that. However I’d also love for federated systems to work for mainstream audiences.
I’m not the only one who feels this way. A number of instances are prepping to partially or fully block Threads from the get-go.
Even without Meta, I’m not excited for another 1M+ instance. My experience is that the larger an instance is, the worse it is. Less community, worse moderation, more bad actors hiding in plain sight. You just can’t toss people into a generalist million people scrum and expect them to form a digital community.
If you’re on mastodon.social, you’re not experiencing the best of the fediverse IMO. Find a small instance of your interest (<500 people) and interact with the local timeline. People on my instance recognize me, make in jokes, I chat with the admin and mods, it’s like actual digital neighborhood. It’s really the closest we’ve gotten back to forums and I don’t think dumping a bucket of FAANG-style corporate water on it is the answer.
Luckily, my instance put an end to it faster than one can say "domain block".
