Caveat: I'm not a good Twitter user as I only really started using the platform a few months before Musk's acquisition. Most of the folks I follow on Twitter ha

Caveat: I'm not a good Twitter user as I only really started using the platform a few months before Musk's acquisition. Most of the folks I follow on Twitter haven't left, but I've used Mastodon/Pleroma in the past and have experience with it. What I think of when I hear about people wanting a Twitter alternative, is to join a global social network and just start messaging people. At its best, I can find a VR content creator I really like and a transit advocate I think is cool and ask them questions or send them content off-the-cuff. In a more community-oriented Mastodon world, VR content creators would be on a VR specific instance and transit folks on an urban planning instance. Nothing is stopping me from making an account on another instance and following/messaging them, but there's all sorts of friction that taints the experience. Is the VR content creator on instance A the same person I want to talk to, or are they on instance B? What if I join an instance C that's been blocked by instance A, but allowed by instance B? Do I trust the admin of instance C to not read my posts? Is membership on instance C even open right now? Again, to those looking for community-oriented socializing, these are all features and not bugs. Why would I care about talking to VR content creators if I'm in a transit community? If the community doesn't want me (invites are disallowed), why would I even enter? But Twitter does present (among other things) the idea of having a "globally addressed social network", which Mastodon is not. Moreover there are many vibrant tools out there for community social networks, ActivityPub is one of many.