But here comes my unpopular opinion:

Bigger is not always better.
Growth is not always good.

I would vastly prefer small, minimally federated instances where people *truly* don't have to suffer from abuse and harassment, *actually* don't have to share space with Nazis. Where people can talk and share thoughts and kick cat pictures around without dogpiling and hate.

Fuck growth. Growth is value-neutral. If what you're getting more of sucks, it's not an improvement.

Mastodon has profited from the *perception* of being anti-abuse, while philosophically deprioritizing it, because being Bigger is always going to win out.

So I'm looking forward to seeing what the #ForkOffTogether folks come up with, and I'd eagerly cut itras.by over to that if it delivers the anti-abuse features vulnerable folks have been clamoring for from the beginning.

@sabrecat well even then, one could still consider that growth, but the better, more horizontal sort that gives more power to people.

@mirzaba True, like "growth" as used in the phrase "personal growth" etc. But that's not measurable with bigger numbers, so it's less appealing to the techbro set.

@sabrecat I'd be certainly interested in a system that allows for a small private community system for people with specific interests, a bit like an online club house.

It would complement the open federated systems nicely by giving different choices for different needs and circumstances.

@polychrome @sabrecat this sounds fucking food

@polychrome @sabrecat good*

@sabrecat Hmm. Intresting.

@sabrecat I think that view deserves more discussion than it gets in the Mastodon community.

Currently, Mastodon federates with any instance except the ones you blacklist. Some communities might prefer the opposite: federating only with instances you whitelist, or not federating at all.

@sabrecat

"But a Mastodon instance that doesn't do open federation is basically just a web forum," someone might argue.

True, but:

- Mastodon is pretty good forum software.

- It comes with an ecosystem of third-party client software.

- Unlike with most forum software, the community will always have the *option* of doing open federation, if they want that later.

It's worth noting that Pleroma makes it easy to have a non-federating server.

@Aaron Interesting to hear that Pleroma provides that functionality. I thought their philosophy was even more gonzo free speech maximalism of the "blocking is censorship" variety? hm!

@sabrecat Yeah, there's just a setting called "federating" that decides whether the instance talks to the fediverse. I guess some administrators like to use Pleroma to run standalone forums.