i think the most annoying piece of cognitive dissonance with the fediverse today is that there is no reason why it couldn¦t be good. when mastodon first launched it was an oasis in a sea of techbros and edgelords and outright nazis and there was one timeline and none of the good and useful features you take for granted today. but people still built a strong and resilient community, because they wanted to
you could do that now. you could make a server and be welcoming and hospitable and build a strong and resilient community, and be an oasis in a sea of techbros and edgelords and outright nazis, and if like five servers did that you would have roughly the same constellation that was the fediverse in its heyday that everyone misses. but nobody wants to, because it isn¦t new and interesting anymore. it is just work. the end
the biggest lesson personally for me has been that the people who pour the most energy into hospitality are usually abusers. hospitality is a great way to build followings and social capital. and when i think of the people who had the biggest impact on early mastodon, many of them did eventually end up hurting a lot of people and crashing out and splitting on the platform. for you know, diagnosed personality disorder reasons. the ones that didn¦t, who were stable and goodhearted, were usually the targets. so you know. gotta figure out how to fix that