It’s Free Software; if they want to change the branding, they can fork it. I say fuck the haters of .lol and anime catgirls.

Corpos might get to use our work gratis (since that’s the only way we can make it libre for everyone), but we don’t have to cater to them.

Oh, don’t worry, open source (or, worse, Free Software) apps won’t be allowed on Android or Apple devices, soon. /s

I think co-ops are the way to go, but I can understand that someone “just” wanting to purchase the good/service might not see the difference between a co-op and corporation like Amazon.

I don’t think it’s a size issue really, but co-ops generally stay smaller in part due to how they are internally organized compared to a “median” corporation.

I also think that the government actually does a pretty good job at managing things; it’s just their failures are public. Private boondoggles might drive many people into bankruptcy, but they aren’t publicized any more than absolutely necessary.

When you lose a system. It responds to ping; all services are up, but you can’t find the damn thing.

So, not a number so much as a limit to your organizational skill+effort.

Don’t boost it. If it violates your instance’s rules (e.g. it’s a scam), report it. Unfollow people that boost it. Mute/block the poster or their content.

I don’t mind seeing it, and I don’t think it is a problem (yet).

Agree that caution is warranted for any request of funds, whatever the requestor wants to call it.

Most people probably don’t have a signed contract with GMail.

I haven’t checked the EULA but they likely have sole discretion around dropping / blocking email, especially any email that might be deleterious to Google Alphabet’s business.

It’s all I have for proper threading. I won’t forgive Reddit for how they treated me and my communities. But, if you are willing to use Reddit, I’m sure it’s going the have user advantage (and because of that niche interest advantage) for quite a while. I hope it serves your needs and brings you joy.

You might try building a community here, but that is the “slow boring of hard wood” and it can be difficult to find joy in, especially at first.

“users will be frustated and leave” exactly the same thing can happen to an instance that adds an instance (or wildcard domain) block. I’d be very surprised if no instance has ever rolled back a block.

Users don’t need to worry about instance blocks on ActivityPub, any more than they have to worry about DNS RBLs for email.

if gmail could just randomly decide to stop receiving emails from outlook addresses and there’s nothing any user can do about it

This is the case right now.

There’s good reasons GMail doesn’t do that, but there’s absolutely nothing technical preventing from doing that, and I can’t think of anything that legally prevents them from doing that.

Using another ActivityPub-based interface is a LOT to ask for many users. They want a simple to pronounce name, they can stick in their browser’s universal bar and be on a sign-up page in less than 3 clicks without making any more choices.

😞

There have been some complaints about Mastodon for years; both specific (“quote tweets”) and vague (get rid of shitty, often bigoted replies for profiles with a lot of followers or with a marginalized identity).

Mastodon largely hasn’t implemented them. Maybe Bluesky has. (I don’t have a BS account.)

The other suggestions are probably better, but you can technically self-host Wire (from Wire Gmbh) but I’ve never done it successfully.