It would be cool to see everyone's Mastodon usernames/domains, I'm on my own self hosted instance where it's a bit more difficult to find other people.
Mine is: https://toot.jeena.net/@jeena
Mine is: https://toot.jeena.net/@jeena
As you allude to, discovery is harder since you don't have an algorithm pointing you in the direction of content you're likely to engage with (yes, engage with, and not necessarily enjoy) but once you have found the right people to follow, it's more rewarding because it's your community, not owned by a single corporate entity.
Although I didn't use G+ much in the later days, its closure showed my how irresponsible it is to rely on proprietary platforms. I'm committed to never be active on a proprietary, closed social media platform again.
My main account is here: https://functional.cafe/@loke
Including HN?
I don't “post” on Hacker News. I do comment, but I don't think anyone who are interested in following whatever it is that I may have to say would come here to look up my posts.
Or, to put it in another way, if this place would introduce some social media features, such as the ability to follow people and post to followers, then it is highly unlikely that I would be interested in using those features.
Of course, I'm not hosting my own server, so I am in some way in the hands of its administrator, just like I was in the hands of Google when I used G+. However, I can talk to him directly, which is a huge benefit. Also, if he decides to shut down the server, I can still join a different instance and reconnect with all the people I was following on the old server.
I'd love to self-host a Mastodon instance that two-way mirrors my Twitter account and acts as a Twitter client (letting me pseudo-follow folks from Twitter). But in any case, I'd want to ensure that no content from people I follow gets mirrored/hosted on my own instance; the only content actually hosted on my own instance should be the content I post.
there are also admin controls for managing moderation and federation.
Not sure if there are bots / apps that can easily let you follow Twitter users on Mastodon, but I've definitely seen mastodon - twitter crossposter apps before.
I also made a guide for making your own Mastodon CSS:
https://penguindreams.org/blog/using-custom-css-with-mastodo...
https://mastodon.technology/@tracker1
I've thought about putting one up for social.bbs.io or bbs.land