What I’ve found from running my own mastodon server is that while self-hosting is a very nice idea to control your own account and manage your own timeline (spe

What I’ve found from running my own mastodon server is that while self-hosting is a very nice idea to control your own account and manage your own timeline (specifically, choosing who to defederate with), there is a fundamental flaw with it. Everything must be copied over to your server first. Let me say that again: You only see data that is stored on your local instance. So likes, profiles, replies, etc are all very limited, since your server only stores them from people you follow (since you’re the only user). Not only this, but this works in reverse aswell. Only servers that know of your existence will see your posts. If no one is following you, only people (and people on their server) you directly reply to will see your posts. As such, being in a self-hosted instance or small community can be extremely isolating and make it hard to really network with other people outside of the circle that is already around you.