First, my opinion about the instance that existed before: I hate "FOSS" the acronym. It places Free Software, the original and useful idea, on the same level as Open Source, the corporate bullshit that they made up to justify using Free software and attempt to steal its mojo while keeping the hoarder mentality intact.

Not that I never use it, this is a newer opinion that I'm still working on integrating into my rhetoric.

I'm not here to defend the now-threatened instance, whatever the case. But I will say, this one does look like a pointless witchhunt to me.

Nobody can point to a single moderation decision made on fosstodon that is of concern, by this fellow or anyone else.

That should have been the end of the story, IMO.

But that's not even the story I'm here to tell today. I'm here to fix the Internet.

The Gist: #Fosstodon has 60k-70k users, and that is too many for a Fediverse Internet Server.

For the Fediverse Internet to work, all servers need to be operated on a human scale. 60k users, with 9k daily active, clearly a few humans are were operating it, but it turns out they are quitting because they are burnt out from all that work, real friggin work, on something that probably started as a lark on some level.

The witchfinder generals believed they were delivering retribution here, taking something away from the accused, but look how quickly and without regret the witch acceded; he was getting just about nothing from being a mod there, is my conclusion. And same goes, it turns out, for the operators of the site.

The takeaway here has nothing to do with social justice, and everything to do with the fact that some of the #Fediverse is being operated at scales similar to the silos, with the main instance being presumably still the worst example - this is not sustainable, and the admins of a sufficiently large instance will pull the plug on many, many users if they get burnt out from not having the rather extraordinary levels of support they need.

There is an ongoing tension these days about open registration and large instances, that many have not yet noticed, maybe, but the conflict is coming. We all agree on one thing: The Fedi is not in its final form. The death of Fosstodon, I argue, is a bit of Darwinian evolution happening before our eyes.

Getting rid of this "go big and go bigger" mindset, which is leftover from the fact that this protocol is serving as the conduit for imitations of the large sites that were built by Capital, is a big part of reaching the sustainable, robust form that we need.

Gotta go pick up the kids, to be continued...