Without diving into deep into this here is what looks like a good explainer of Mastodon
https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/03/decentralized-social-network-mastodon-grows-to-655k-users-in-wake-of-elon-musks-twitter-takeover/The confusing feature of Mastodon is the choice of what server you choose when you sign up as they are topic specific.
There is a general topic Mastodon
Counter.social is a customized version of Mastodon, so I guess it’s treated one of the server options available.
In theory there could be a 930 Mastodon server
The problem with all these giant social media sites is they destroyed scene specific forums and discussion boards, which someone was bemoaning the lose of recently.. now of course as great as it would be to back to the time of listserves, the golden age of this forum, the velvet rope which was a very gossipy music industry forum, etc.. it sure is nice that Twitter provided a centralized easy to use platform versus having to go to several sites, but everyone is competing for the same users
One could see the return of large forums, but having to do content and user moderation in these times would be a massive headache
And don’t get me started on the use of Discord servers for which I can barely keep up with the couple I’m on… I suspect Reddit would make my head explode
