Before I joined the Fediverse, it felt like the Internet was composed of only 4-5 social media sites and a bunch of corporate news articles, with only a couple of old remnant sites that looked out of place like a historic church in a business district. All of a sudden, though, it feels like people are creating lots of new sites. I’ve been exploring the other Fediverse sites since then, and playing around with Marginalia.nu/hearing about them from other people, and it seems like the “real” web that we were told about in the 2000s is thriving again, albeit in the shadow of the big sites where 90% of people will never see it.
We don’t miss the freedom. We know that we have a choice. We’re from the age of web communities being twenty to thirty people large. In those days communities were small. Now we’re shouting in a crowded room, to be heard. It’s nice to migrate, and find places where we’re heard, without having to be loud.