I've found that quality on the fediverse is quite high, but takes curation and exploration to find people you want to follow. Once you have a good seed of people, it grows pretty organically as you follow people with interesting posts boosted by people you do follow.
It's the only social network that I've actually stuck with and enjoy, having tried and fallen of both twitter and facebook. A big part of that was unfollowing people who posted political stuff and following people who posted stuff about cool hobbies and whatnot
I understand that some people gain some sort of satisfaction out of this, but it mostly defeats the purpose for the average user.
Imagine you walk into a bar, and it’s clearly filled with neonazis. Someone says to you, “Hey! This is a great bar. You’ll have to curate your friends in here, but once you do you’ll find some great folks.”
It’s just silly to think the average person is even remotely interested in that. I’m a big fan of decentralized and p2p technology, but social networks are very much improved by strong, strict regulation at a central level.
Granted, I’m a dedicated twitter user, and I’m also interested in political topics and discussions, which you mentioned that you weren’t.
Twitter’s flavor isn’t for everybody. I think there should be more flavors in general, but what the fediverse offers is a different dish, different restaurant, different everything. I’m skeptical it will find much success outside of the sorts of people that use it now.
I strongly disagree with the analogy - it's much more like welcome to the big city! Where all would you like to hang out and make friends? The park? The sports bar? Sex club? Political rally? Neonazi hangout? Anarchist collective?
In the analogy each place is a different instance that you start following people on, with its own culture and interests.
I've not run across any neonazis that I'm aware of, I believe they tend to be blocked by most servers pretty quickly, though one could seek instances filled with them if they wish. I could see that if you were seeking political discussion the Fediverse might be less attractive, since I imagine it would tend to be more extreme (right and left).
It's the only social network that I've actually stuck with and enjoy, having tried and fallen of both twitter and facebook. A big part of that was unfollowing people who posted political stuff and following people who posted stuff about cool hobbies and whatnot