Yea, generally agreed all round here. For me, the ideal solution is a landing / newbies instance where your account can only last for a fixed period coupled with a focus on making it super easy to move your account.

Putting that aside however, I think the signal here is pretty clear. Mastodon now has a big brand and product with users who have criticisms and scope to grow. And now they acknowledge it, as it’s gotten real for them, so they’re taking it seriously as a centralised organisation would and arguably should. They’ve got their app, landing page, and obviously big fat server.

All up, an open source crowd funded alternative to Twitter, which is actually pretty cool. And by the looks of it, a bunch of powerful changes are coming that are really going to transform the platform from a niche safe place to a mainstream social media platform (search, post mobility, quotes, groups).

But for the rest of the fediverse, the giant gorilla now knows how strong it is and is willing to stretch and flex its muscles. Something like 1/7 of the fediverse is on mastodon.social. They could be completely defederated and not care that much.