All in all I'm thrilled to see the fediverse go mainstream, despite the growing pains it's creating for instance admins and veterans. But it's true that we have lost something in the process and I think Hugh articulates it beautifully here:
"There's another, smaller group of people mourning a social media experience that was destroyed this week — the people who were active on Mastodon and the broader fediverse prior to November 2022. The nightclub has a new brash owner, and the dancefloor has emptied. People are pouring in to the quiet houseparty around the corner, cocktails still in hand, demanding that the music be turned up, walking mud into the carpet, and yelling over the top of the quiet conversation."
I don't agree with everything Hugh says here. There have been genuine disagreements among veterans for years about whether Public posts are legitimately in the public domain. Also about whether some potential features are really that threatening to survivors of harassment, given the mod tools available now. But he's right that the 'verse has changed forever, in a way that people who were online in the early 90s might recognize.
