> The current approach presents itself as a kind of socialist/libertarian communal utopia, and it can be depending on how a given instance is run -- but in practice, each instance is a monarchy with absolute power over not only your presence in the kingdom but which other kingdoms you're allowed to talk to. Your social graph can be broken at any point because your admin has decided, for any reason, to stop federating with an instance you have followers on, or vice-versa. The net effect is that you can be punished for transgressions, real or imagined, that you weren't a party to (and might not even be aware of). And I don't think that has a technical solution, just a policy one.
This is so spot on! It's easy to say Mastodon is solving all these problems, but the reality is that it's just not big enough that it has faced any real challenges, and the challenges it really faces are mostly philosophical, not technical. AFAICT it hasn't scratched the surface on the philosophical governance issues.