People wonder why folks just set up Discords or Slacks or whatever instead of running some kind of web app and honestly I feel like if my experience running this Mastodon is what it's like running most other modern web conversation apps, it is because this shit is absolutely apocalyptic amounts of pain in the ass to set up and keep updated unless you're already spending all day long wrangling servers. Nobody* wants to get a side degree in the ever-changing world of modern server maintenance just to have a space to talk with their friends. Nobody* wants to learn Git and constantly merge their patches back in just so they can decorate their space to talk with their friends.

(* yes I am sure someone thinks this is a great time, this is a vanishingly small percentage of people compared to the number of people who might want a nice space online to chat with their friends, also obviously I was dumb enough to think this sounded like a good idea, how hard can it be, putting shit on the web used to be super easy back when you just ftp'd a bunch of php into a server and everything was ready)

This is part of why everyone ends up on fucking corporate sites, too. Those can afford to pay some poor schlub to fill their brain with the teetering piles of garbage required to keep these things running, even if it requires either horrible data-mining, selling everyone's eyeballs to the highest bidder, and/or putting off those horrible choices via a round of venture capital that will eventually demand huge profits or sell you off for parts.

I should spend some time looking at other ActivityPub hosts and maybe just... EOL this place, if it turns out Mastodon is just especially shitty in the ease-of-installation-and-maintenance department.