Mastodon is a nice project, but to me the architecture is wrong.
You sign up for an account at some server and the moderator can just ban you for no reason (which happens to a lot of people).
You need to own your account. The servers should merely be publishers and relays of content. I think Jack's Nostr is closer to what could work at scale and time.
> You sign up for an account at some server and the moderator can just ban you for no reason (which happens to a lot of people).
No one I know personally has been banned.
The only people I've seen blocked and banned were aggressively anti-LGBT and who claimed their free speech was being impinged if they had to stop yelling about it. If you have very strong opinions on other people's sexuality, so be it, but go get your own server rather than yelling this at random passerby. Mastodon encourages good civility and getting along, rather than extreme free speech.
Twitter wants views in order to sell ads and in many ways, controversial extreme opinions can do that -- they get reactions. Mastodon isn't about that. It is more of a friendly place to hang out with friends. It isn't about yelling at political opponents.
You sign up for an account at some server and the moderator can just ban you for no reason (which happens to a lot of people).
You need to own your account. The servers should merely be publishers and relays of content. I think Jack's Nostr is closer to what could work at scale and time.