when mastodon first started, activitypub didn't exist yet. the fediverse was a bunch of GNU Social instances communicating over the OStatus protocol. these instances were well-established, and they did not take kindly to the popularity of Mastodon and all the new users taking over their existing, quiet culture
the existing, quiet culture, by the way, was a bunch of channer shit and blatantly anti-gay and anti-trans memes. the instance we saw most often on the federated timeline in those days was shitposter.club, a place which virtually every respectable instance now has blocked. mastodon didn't really *have* blocks back then
bad instances have always existed and every good thing about the fediverse today was hard-fought and hard-won. making it better will mean more work, fighting, and winning
i’m tired of reductive takes like “the fediverse shouldn't be bad; the fediverse should be good” which erase both the history of struggle and the actual tactics used to get us where we are now
setl monsterpit, long live glitchsoc, etc etc