Good article and great insights.
I am a RIF refugee myself and only heard a bit about mastodon because I never took interest in twitter.
After the Reddit drama I heard about instances like these and federations themselves and it peaked my interest.
I tried a few options but I enjoy Kbin the most.
I am honestly done with the centralization of the information I consume and the enshittification of it. I'd rather take the leap of information possibly disappearing than to have it behind ridiculous paywalls and endless sponsored content.
Almost everything is being build in a shitty facebook/tik tok/insta clone based on monetization and it irritates me more and more.
I am just looking for a forum like experience with the information simple and dense on my screen (like RIF).
The fact that I can get that here is enough for me to stay.
Another thing is for the people who read this and may contemplate to return to Reddit; Reddit will bend you over again...and again..and again.
They need to see profits and they are willing to go scorched earth for it. This will never benefit you in their decisions but it will be of the benefit of the shareholders.
Free speech absolutists have nothing to do with free speech.
These just want to say what they want without having to bear the consequences.
The right to say what you want is a good thing. But in the end it doesn't mean that the other side should be accepting of the speech you deem free.
If one is spouting vitrol/hate/intolerance towards a group of people under the banner "free speech" then don't look up weird when the affected are not accepting of that speech you deem free.
For me the whole idea free speech is to express yourself how you want to (within what is reasonable, use your common sense) without the police and/or government knocking at your door.
At that point my boundary is at spewing or pushing for intolerance. I refuse to be be tolerant towards intolerance.