On the other hand, an isolated community can also become a nasty brewing pot, reinforcing harmful behaviors and even intensifying them over time.
I don’t think calling them safe spaces for hateful assholes is accurate, but I understand frustrations with them.
Discoverability is a huge barrier to entry in the Fediverse, and they’re not helping.
It’s hard for me to judge them too harshly, though. Fediverse devs do things I disagree with all the time, and users too. Maybe, in a different world, something else could’ve taken Mastodon’s place… but its forks stick close, Pleroma has the charm of a brick, Misskey is too 日本, and Misskey forks got Messy, and—
…Oh. That’s it, isn’t it? Mastodon is the best that ActivityPub has to offer most microblogging fans.