I agree on the low quality of the global public channel (both Diaspora and Mastodon have one), but if you pick a good server, the local public channel tends to

I agree on the low quality of the global public channel (both Diaspora and Mastodon have one), but if you pick a good server, the local public channel tends to be quite useful for discovering new and interesting stuff - or people. Once you block all the noisy bots, that is...