Mastodon simply cannot be that user centric because the user can only control the subset of the Fediverse that your instance is able and allowed to see. Given that single user instances are largely nonviable due to the abundance of blocking in the 'verse in lieu of adequate spam controls, which ActivityPub fundamentally lacks, your choice of homeserver matters more than anything. And of course, there's no good way to choose one as a new user. Most newcomers will simply give up when faced with the choice. Even with great interest I've gotten stuck at this stage multiple times, myself. No homeserver seems welcoming, and they're all a little culty.

HN looks at the federated model and thinks about how much control the homeserver operator has and imagine themselves in that position as a "user" when the truth is that each homeserver is a small fiefdom run by a dictator and users have even less control over what they see there than they do in the corporate networks

I used a single user instance, and it's perfectly viable. If anything it's less hassle with respect to blocks.

Relays can also easily mitigate the issue you describe, as can an algo provider that simply boost all entries it puts in your feed.

I also run a single-user instance, and it's fine. Maybe I'm not prolific enough or marginalized enough to attract much attention, but I've only had to block one person in 2 years.

> the abundance of blocking in the 'verse in lieu of adequate spam controls, which ActivityPub fundamentally lacks

Bring your own algorithm can tackle spam (like adblocks). ActivityPub is flexible enough for Mastodon to build up references to algo-providers.

I've been frustrated by Mastodons slow movement on this, I considered approaching the popular clients to implement this. After all, ad-blockers run entirely on the client. A basic standard can be drawn up that governs how to boost or penalize toots' visibility based on keywords, author or instance, based on an updated list is viable today amd can run entirely on the user's device. Web-based clients are more complex, and require patching the standard Masto server or running in a sidecar.

> the abundance of blocking in the 'verse in lieu of adequate spam controls, which ActivityPub fundamentally lacks

Bring your own algorithm can tackle spam (like adblocks). ActivityPub is flexible enough for Mastodon to build up references to algo-providers.

I've been frustrated by Mastodons slow movement on this, I considered approaching the popular clients to implement this. After all, ad-blockers run entirely on the client. A basic standard to boost or penalize toots' visibility based on keywords, author or instance based on an updated list is viable today.

> no good way to choose one as a new user.

I agree, lots of things I have just never gotten around to because I had do chose something, choice can sometimes be a bad thing.

>Given that single user instances are largely nonviable due to the abundance of blocking in the 'verse

Yeah, that's nonsense. I've been running my own single-user instance since 2018 and server blocks by other instance administrators have never caused any problems for my use of the Fediverse.

I also follow a bunch of other people who run their own and never see any comments suggesting it's a problem for them either.

My gut feel is that it's true for a specific subset of single user instances.

Those run by people who launched them because they keep getting kicked off decently moderated instances...

  > Most newcomers will simply give up when faced with the choice. 

Why not give them back the top 5 instance list?