[sshine]

> federation is a nice idea but the pragmatic benefits are a lot less clear

> it's not obvious that federated social networking can reliably deliver

I love the idea of federations / federalism.

I also look at Mastodon and neither want to run my own instance or carry the mental ability to remember what instance I signed up on. Defending the idea of federalism but acknowledging that Mastodon isn't a perfect replacement for Twitter, I'd like to modify your statement:

Federation is a nice idea, but federations are only as strong as their members.

The Mastodon federation, combined, is smaller than Twitter.

So Twitter, while not being a federation, still has a better network effect.