> Maybe we’re just ideologically misaligned here. I think every single little community hosting a copy of every single app is insane, and not where I’d like to end up

Well, it's where we used to be — and it solves most of the issues of the modern web. Forums, blogs, IRC, teamspeak, gaming servers, etc, it all used to work relatively well with that approach.

I don’t think the problem I want solved here is replicating forums, blogs, IRC, Teamspeak, or gaming servers. I want something a lot like Twitter but with some way to take my stuff and leave if an asshole takes control. I don’t want Mastodon, because from what I’ve seen of it when friends link me stuff from it it’s extremely clunky and slow. Plus, whenever I’ve gone to create an account I’ve been presented with a huge list of servers to chose from, many of which seem to be focused on a specific topic, which makes me think I need to pick which community I want to be tied to with minimal knowledge.

Twitter became a global phenomenon with the same UI and an even slower ruby on rails implementation behind it, despite the constant fail whale.

> Plus, whenever I’ve gone to create an account I’ve been presented with a huge list of servers to chose from, many of which seem to be focused on a specific topic, which makes me think I need to pick which community I want to be tied to with minimal knowledge.

As you're already self-hosting ATproto anyway, why not self-host a mastodon instance as well?

> Twitter became a global phenomenon with the same UI and an even slower ruby on rails implementation behind it, despite the constant fail whale.

I’m not sure what this comment is responding to. I don’t want a constant fail whale or a slow experience, and I don’t think a lot of other people would want that either.

> As you're already self-hosting ATproto anyway, why not self-host a mastodon instance as well?

Hosting a PDS is free, plus it’s considerably lighter weight conceptually than a whole Mastodon instance!