I’m still on the waitlist. Download link not working sounds weird

No, anyone is able to create a “feed”

Problem being that any instance only displays those posts under a hashtag that it knows about. Currently, if I follow #formula1 from my home instance, I’m seeing different posts than if I follow #formula1 from a certain other instance.

Will probably get better with developments in that aspect in the next few years.

Surph_ninja is definitely right with one thing though: previously Meta used a pre-selected group of organizers who were able to fact check. Meta are now switching to a model where everyone can “fact check” (the former Twitter “community notes” system).

I take it that you missed the whole WordPress situation that developed over the last couple of months?

It’s about control over the intellectual property (trademarks, copyright) as well as control over the company which pays the developers. One does definitely not want a single person in control of these things, otherwise they can hold the whole project hostage (like Mullenweg is accused of, in the case of WordPress).

Additionally, the change also gives them a preferable tax status than the previous arrangement.

The point isnt money. The point is the “benevolent dictator” model, see Matt Mullenweg and the current WordPress controversy. The whole future of that software depends on this guy because he controls the most important assets (like the trademarks) personally.

Eugen and the whole Mastodon development team want to avoid a situation like that.

Bluesky has had a very fast development cycle and now already has features it didnt have 6 months ago. Mastodon’s main problem IMO is how long it takes for features to make their way into the live version. There are features on their github ready to be merged in for 2 years and when asked, no one on the development team was able to find out why it had not been merged.

Bluesky literally allows people to finetune controls on things like allowing quote posts and replies. Thats way more freedom that the average social media platform gives to a user.

Bluesky has the USP of people being able to choose from multiple algorithms or even use multiple ones at the same time; and that certainly has resonated with a lot of people.

The Mastodon devs have received a grant to work on a search/visibility tool in 2025, so I definitely expect developments there

Whatever the usecase for Instagram is

Well at least not according to the legal view of the tax authorities… from what I have heard anecdotally over the years about german tax authorities, they seem to be very much not living in a 21st century digital world.

They previously had a pretty unique structure (gemeinnützige GmbH) but the german authorities stripped them from that status saying “free social media is not a public benefit purpose”.