Mastodon is nice, you're likely to find an instance focused on anything you're interested in, from photography to gaming to pentesting. I already know there's a fairly large community of artists[0] running an instance, but you can probably get more/less specific depending on your interests.

Mastodon's biggest features are chronological timelines, cross-site ActivityPub integration, zero ads (unless your instance deliberately runs them), and total decentralization. If that sounds like your jam, you'll probably like it. If you're interested in a more algorithmic suggestion engine though, you may have to look elsewhere.

[0] https://mastodon.art/about

  >Mastodon's biggest features are... <snip>

And, as with all the new fediverse wannabes, no way to import your existing 'stuff' from the sites they seek to replace. Or, for that matter, move your 'stuff' from one fediverse instance to another.

Yes, folks. Come to the fediverse. Where every day is 'Ground Zero Day'!

There's no point in importing your stuff. It's not like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook or Instagram offers this feature either, and they seem to get along just fine.

> Yes, folks. Come to the fediverse. Where every day is 'Ground Zero Day'!

OP was asking for a "less gross" alternative to Instagram. I gave them a suggestion, so unless you have a better alternative I guess we're at an impasse. I'm not claiming it's an ultra-popular site or is completely normie-friendly, just that it's less-gross than Instagram.

I never said it wasn't an alternative. Or put down your choice. I was just including the addendum that no-one should expect to be able to do bring any of their existing [and possibly built up over years] 'stuff' with them, should they decide to move to the fediverse.

  >It's not like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook or Instagram offers this feature either, and they seem to get along just fine...

They're the incumbents, with billions of users. They don't have to give a shit. Wannabe alternatives, on the other hand, do.

People always bang on about 'vendor lock-in". But no-one seems to consider 'vendor lock-out'.

If you're going to start a rival to a company with millions of users, many of whom have been on there for years, it smacks of colossal arrogance to expect them all to flock to your new alternative and just lose everything they've built up over the years on the rival site.

And the irony is that; all the companies you mentioned make it easy for you to export your existing data. But none of their fediverse rivals avail of that to actually offer you a way to import it.

Just post them on Twitter?

Pixelfed.

+1

Clickable link: https://pixelfed.social/