@dredmorbius I think @shelholtz hits the nail on the head with this article, that just having an account at one #mastodon instance is never enough, it should be around your interest; likewise, #mastodon will likely to carve out a different revenue model than what we have seen with social media so far (er ... centralised social media). This is definitely a space to watch, rather than proclaim DOA.

@arinbasu @shelholtz I've currently got two profiles running, one on mastodon.cloud (this), and @dredmorbius (mammouth.cafe).

The first is a 40k user instance, the second ... has about 50 users. It's a /very/ different feel.

@arinbasu @dredmorbius @shelholtz

2 thoughts:

1) Interest-based instances seem a natural way forward, a bit like subreddits without reddit. Users get a local timeline of shared interests plus ability to signal that interest across federation.

2) Fracturing may seem like a problem. I don't think so. People will always make boundaries. Houses have walls, properties have fences, etc. Free disassociation is as important as free association.

@MariusAgricola @dredmorbius @shelholtz
Excellent points; I think so too, as #gs and #mastodon instances very deftly meld the two concepts people network with interest network, through its localised instances and distributed nature of the fediverse. As @dredmorbius wrote recently, instances with different user count feel very different, yet the two can coexist.