99% of normies use platforms that offer only one dictatorial fiefdom. Picking the biggest server is better than that option. Picking a server at random is better than that option.
I never understood why people even cared to choose a server. If you're only looking at posts from people you follow, it doesn't matter. Who cares what other people you don't know on your server are saying
Because 2 out of top 3 servers and half of top 10 were in Japan and filled with content that they couldn't politically handle.
Cutting that off and "just walk into the brightest place" couldn't happen at the same time, so the core devs and ops switched to the "Mastodon's strength is in small servers, pick any of the right one" narrative.
Can you tell more about the Japan thing? It's the first I've heard of it. What kind of content? I can't think of anything political about Japan that's super hard to handle.
I believe there's a fair amount of content on Japanese Mastodon servers that would land me, as an admin in the UK, in extremely hot water[0] if I was letting it be stored on my servers (whether I looked at it or not.)
Ah I see the age of consent in UK is 18 and in Japan it appears to be 16 (the same page links to the Japanese one). Weird.
I thought they were super strict there (after all they even require that blocky censor thing on the functional parts in normal adult pornos making it basically useless).