By hosting your own Mastodon server, you are effectively buying into only receiving direct, point-to-point notifications and you lose what remains of the “overheard amongst acquaintances” effect that Twitter and now Bluesky effectively capture (that is, when it’s on the same, large instance).

Of course, replicating this effect would be a dump truck of load on every Mastodon server, but it’s also the experience most people seem to want, so that’s unfortunate.