No, we’d like to go back to the culture that created protocols to solve our needs, such that people could create interoperable servers and clients to implement those protocols.

Email is an open protocol, perfectly suited for delivering messages between people. Discord is a closed application, unsearchable, any server or account may be nuked at discord's discretion, thus it's entirely unsuited to replace e.g. a forum.

You do understand the difference?

Maybe time for a Usenet renaissance?

I don't want to run my own Whatever server.

I want Whatever to be designed in a way that allows me to go find a provider of Whatever that I'm comfortable with, to run my server for me, and for it to interoperate with Whatevers of other people regardless of which provider they are using.

I also want it to be possible for me to take all my data - chat logs, membership etc - and move them to another provider of Whatever if my current provider enshittifies.

And yes, I do want it to be possible to self-host, if it turns out that no remaining providers of Whatever meet the bar.