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What if people lose their interest in Facebook/Twitter/etc and want something better? What happens when tens of millions of people switch to public Fediverse instances?
Fediverse doesn't have Facebook-like algorithms to keep news feeds clean. And even if it had, enforcing those rules would be up to instances itself. People are used to see clean and fresh feeds and that's why the amount of hurt feelings is going to be significant. Let's keep in mind that moderators and admins are there for fun (voluntary work). No one is going to be moderator for free anymore if the amount of voluntary work is going to be massive.
So let's imagine the worst case scenario: The most peaceful Fediverse instance suddenly gains tens of millions of new users. The amount of work moderators do is now insane (PMs, spam, harassment, etc). Moderators leave. Donations are not enough to motivate. Users start demanding democracy when choosing new moderators. Polarisation begins between several interest groups. On the other hand, the instance admin doesn't want to give up power. Admin becomes frustrated, because everyone is very eager to make claims how other people should work for them (for free), but nobody is there to volunteer for free. And after that realization, the admin just decides to shut down the instance and tens of millions of people lose their accounts.
After one instance gets closed, hordes wander towards next Fediverse instance...
Before that point many people have already left the instance and chosen another one (private/niche instance).
Single instances face huge difficulties dealing with spam/bots/etc, but this problem is smaller with "small internet model". How about RSS feeds? Instead of creating social media accounts, people should create personal websites with RSS/Atom feed support. This way people have more autonomy. There would be less bloat on websites. There would be less censorship and less frustrated admins/moderators. There would be real internet communities again. All of this have already happened in 1990s and 2000s.
PS. Just to avoid misunderstandings, let me be clear: the critic here is not about Fediverse itself. It's about human interaction.
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Last updated: 23.1.2022