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We are clearly talking about the federation in social networking services (which I and many others would call simply social networks, but since someone clearly

We are clearly talking about the federation in social networking services (which I and many others would call simply social networks, but since someone clearly didn't like that). The OP analyzes the federation as a means to build such services, while your anecdote only says that the federation is enough to serve your needs---the anecdote which the OP doesn't even object. While I don't use Mastodon for a lot of reasons, I had operated an IRC network for a long time and experienced its eventual demise as well. IRC started out as a worldwide federated network until it isn't, and many IRC networks only worked because of its constituent users---my network never reached that critical mass in comparison. I would have no reason to worry about that if IRC did have the working federation to this day! In the current fediverse choosing the correct nodes (or to federate, if you have your own personal node) is mandatory, indirectly showing that its federation is not enough, just like IRC.

vidarh 2y ago
And I was talking about the federation in social networking services. My paragraph still stands in that context. You're response comes across as an incredibly bad faith reading of what I wrote. Federation does not give you a right to expect every instance to want to talk to you. This is the typical left- vs. right-libertarian thinking, where the right-libertarians tend to get all angry and upset when left-libertarians point out that maximising freedom includes maximising our freedom to choose who to associate with and set rules for that association. It's still federation if someone blocks your instance.