> These kinds of social media platforms always seem so technologically interesting, but in practice, end up as a bastion for content too distasteful or hateful to post on "normal" services (think voat, the vast majority of Mastodon instances, gab, the list goes on).

Part of the problem, at least with voat and gab, is that those services were created to avoid the moderation that kept the "distasteful or hateful" content off mainstream services. I wonder if alternative services that start with communities that strongly want to keep that stuff out would fare better.