Yes, I do agree with that.
My expectation at this point is that people will prefer to migrate their PDS, even if it’s to another VC-funded company. I could be wrong, nobody can predict the future, so we’ll see.
It just feels like the fediverse has already built a reputation for itself that’s going to be really hard to shake off.
That’s fair. I realize that I am relying on a lot of anecdotes here, so let’s maybe just drop this.
That is a great point. I’ve admittedly being focus on the presence of Black people, but I’d also add that creators (eg certain popular Youtubers) have received a lot of backlash as well.
There is so much opposition to anyone having any kind of income that it’s a bit silly.
Definitely can’t agree here. Yes, masto.host, to use one example, makes it super easy to set up your own server. But the real cost also includes moderation, and with the current limitations (I will note that shared blocklists might be coming, and I will touch on limiting replies in a moment), it’s just not something many will want to sign up for.
Reply controls would need its own topic. I get some of the cons, but the way I look at this:
I run my own blog. If I was told that I have to open up comments to everyone, with no way to automatically remove spam and harassment, and I can’t delete comments, only hide them for myself, but leaving them for everyone else to see, I would not have a blog.
And I really don’t understand why microblogs should work this way either. Nobody owes anyone their time, and in case of more prominent accounts, their audience.
But I see we won’t agree here, so I will just say, this is the most requested feature on Mastodon’s GitHub, by the number of “thumbs-ups”.
I can see the potential for abuse, but that can be addressed by: ignoring people who do this, or reporting them and having their accounts suspended.
If you really want to comment on something you see online, you can always write a blog post. Blogs are even easier to run than a Mastodon server!