[glenstein]

>I would argue that what is described in this post is inherent in all social networks.

This is just what I was thinking. I can't imagine any platform that would meet some of the criteria demanded in this writeup. In what universe would you expect to close your account on twitter, move over to a new account, and migrate your history into a newly opened Twitter account? You can't do that on any private social platform. You also can't update posts on Twitter at all, let alone update and keep comments + replies. You can't know how many of your Twitter followers are "real" either; another thing not unique to Mastodon.

You actually can go past 500 characters on various instances. I'm on one that goes to 1024. As for character limits on "the fediverse" there are non-mastodon projects that let you go beyond 500 characters.

The larger project of federation is just so much more important than all these bizarre little idiosyncratic preferences. It's so maddening to listen to people who think the project of decentralized alternative to private social networks should live or die on whether it includes some new added feature that they can't even get on the private platforms.

[8bitsrule]

>inherent in all social networks

Yep. I've been using Fosstodon for a couple months. It's not much different from the others, except that the typical Fosster is at least as tech-focused as HN. Without room for 10-paragraph expositions.

My daily surf starts with topical sites I know will pay off for me from experience. Later I'll quickly scan HN and various subReddit headlines for items of interest. Finally (time allowing) do I drop into xtodon to walk the seashore and see what the waves left.

Some nice days I like to sit and people-watch. Social media's more like mind-watch. Like BBS's did, sometimes the waves leave some useful flotsam. Mostly it's kelp.