Palladiumasteroid

Having a variety of software from where to choose, even within the same type of platform is actually positive. These software, while similar — but not equal — in terms of UI are completely different in terms of userbase and culture.

Not all former twitter users gave twitter an usage that translates well into Mastodon culture. Instead they could be a better fit for misskey (although this one isn't 100% twitter-like) or pleroma. Or maybe the best for them is something smaller like GTS.

A neurodivergent person that needs to be able to quotepost because they find easy to process information that way is going to have a hard time in Mastodon where are not only now discussing adding the tool, but big part of its userbase reacts negatively to it. Again a Twitter-style fediverse microblogging platform that already has the tool, not only as a feature but ingrained in the culture might be a better fit for them.

Something similar occures with the link aggregators. Yes, they are "Reddit replacements", but they have different cultures, thus they target different kinds of former and in-the-process-of-leaving redditors.

The fediverse is to homogeneous, each particular protocol has its culture that's distinct from all others that make part of the Fediverse; each software using a given protocol has its culture that's distinct from the culture of all other software using the same protocol and each particular instance running a given software has its individual culture that distinguish itself from all other servers running the same software.

Culture and userbase behaviour are just or even more important than the list of features or the UI style when it comes to choose the best place for you on the Fediverse.

The Twitter-style fediverse microblogging platforms are all the same when you just focus on the design aspect and all you have used is Mastodon, but when you take into account culture, the way they behave and interact within themselves and with the wider fediverse...these platforms couldn't be more different from each other.

You say that some are "gonna get culled" but, with exception of projects that were dropped due to personal issues with the devs, but that all somehow live in the form of forks, the Fediverse is expanding and the diversity of platform types is getting greater each day. In fact, there are categories where more diversity of software is needed.

People can perfectly understand terms like instance or server...if they are explained to them.

They are also accustomed to concepts like social media and social network that can also be used to explain the Fediverse. Each server is its own social media platforms interacting with eachother through a distributed social network.

But, I actually think the Fediverse require an intermediate point between social media and social network, or something above it.

If the Fediverse (including in this case all decentralised protocols like ActivityPub, Zot/Nomad, Diaspora, Ostatus, AT Proto, etc) is a Social network and each particular instance it's own social media platforms that interact within the network, the software they run and the community they form part of within the wider fediverse is an intermediate stage between social medium and social network.
Now, if each server/instance are social media platforms and the software they run are the social network; the protocol or protocol they use is/are a network of networks and the Fediverse a network of networks of networks of social media platforms.

Wafrn: As of now it's the Tumblr-style microblog platform that it's closer in terms of content and energy to the original. Goblin has the pro that being a misskey fork has more app options, while wafrn only has only that for now it's in close beta (although I access it through the phone browser no issues), but Goblin seems more serious in its content and interactions (or at least that was my perception)

I think misskey and it's forkeys are it own thing in both terms of features and user base. Akkoma (can't speak about plain pleroma) and Mastodon are similar, but Mastodon has , how to say it, this issue where they spend years shitting on features half the Fediverse have to then add it and pretend they're doing something revolutionary. Also, I don't know why but all the Mastodon servers I've been have had limitations or outright forbid image uploading, telling you to instead open a pixelfed account; I've never seen someone like that even in the crappies key/oma instance. That not even mentioning the toxicity (much of it inherited from twitter during the migrations) that exist in Mastodon.

Piefed like that you can join or abandon communities by topic on piefed and that it ask you if you want to see content with certain topics. Lemmy has the advantage that it has more app options, but it's harder to filter content there and, at least on the server I was, half of the time the search gave no results. Tbh, I think we need a Lemmy fork because that's the only way the community it's ever getting all the user friendly changes it needs. The things that Lemmy lacks it lacks on purpose, there's an active decision to not have them. Different from kbin, I actually like Lemmy, but I agree that PieFed has a lot of potential and as of now haven't had any issues with it.

Currently I'm using wafrn and PieFed, but I've used misskey, Sharkey, goblin, akkoma (never tried pleroma), Mastodon (didn't like it), Lemmy, Kbin (didn't like it, so I haven't even tried to joing a mbin instance), bookwyrm and Friendica. And I may be forgetting something, but those are the Fediverse software I've used the most

I wanna try hubzilla or one of its forks, but I've heard they're a nightmare for mobile use.

Good to know that they'll be training AI on its users only on their browser. What a relief /s

Thunderbird's been isolated and isolated itself from wider Mozilla from sometime, so this doesn't surprise me. It belongs to a different subsidiary and everyday it becomes more separated from other Mozilla products. It's just there.

I use Wafrn and I don't know how exactly the devs did it, but wafrn gives you the ability to enable a bluesky account and interact with people there without being in the official server. I particularly don't have it enabled because I don't care for it, it's basically twitter 2.0 and I hated twitter. So I have no intention to engage in or with a place that's basically ""decentralised" twitter", but it's there and it's opt-in.