Does it have to be the fediverse?

I've seen the "safe space" theory of the fediverse. The idea the fediverse is this place someone "retreats to", and you can use other platforms as the "actual serious platform". I don't find this compelling though. First off, it limits the potential of the fediverse to being entirely about being some sort of "holiday retreat", not as a serious social media platform to be used to escape from the grips of yet another Big Tech company.

This seems like something better suited to something like a traditional forum, or perhaps, Discord (or if you prefer a free alternative, perhaps, something like XMPP or Matrix). However, there are likely other solutions which don't involve federation. I've seen a few over the years. Such a community could be more tightly curated, and someone doesn't even have to be as itchy or jumpy in their moderation. Or to rely on third party gossip. Is the fediverse the right answer here?

As some have already pointed out too, admins themselves might have issues. A few even appear to have narcissistic tendencies[1]. There also seems to be a streak of "high school drama" which you don't typically see as much with other federated networks, although it is not a phenomena I have not seen in website administration. Typically, I've see such behaviors from teenage community administrators, although to a lesser extent, others as well. We also know there are certain contexts which are susceptible to particularly toxic people.

We have to remember that sometimes there are some tools which are better in some situations[2]. If a hammer doesn't work well, then perhaps, a better option is to use something else. And perhaps, there are situations where federation works better, contrary to some opinions [3].

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument

3 https://fieldnotes.resistant.tech/federation-is-the-worst-of-all-worlds/