Actually there are platforms that leverage PHP (e.g. Gnu social, postActiv, etc.) - see the "Programming Languages" section for examples: https://fediverse.part

Actually there are platforms that leverage PHP (e.g. Gnu social, postActiv, etc.) - see the "Programming Languages" section for examples: https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/ https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/ Also, I imagine for new platforms, people just tend to scratch their own itch, and use stacks that they know. I do agree that something that is common and easy enough - like PHP - is always a good idea in order to foster more participants...But then again, maybe as these newer stacks are experimented with, someone finally figures out an easy, solid, safe way to host these platforms...Who knows...maybe in 4 years time all of these platforms will have migrated to something like Rust (for its safety, speed, reliability, etc.) because it will be as easy as PHP is currently to set up...? (Caveat: I am not a Rust expert, so have only heard of its benefits through others, so only using it as a random example.) ADDENDUM: I will agree that everyone benefits from well-done documentation...so regardless of the underlying stack, if there is some really good documentation for helping people set up their environment, then that matters far more to me.