The main reason why Quitter.se in particular stood out in 2016 was that its admins and developers Hannes Mannerheim and @3mp0 created a UI resembling features of Twitter (which is why it was called Qvitter), with the goal to help Twitter users move to the Fediverse.
Today, with ActivityPub the main protocol and Mastodon the main platform software in the fediverse, gnusocial is a niche project. Gnusocial.net seems to be the largest one.
@simsa03 OK, but it never had an instance that was maintained by the developers (not that the current developers of GNU Social actually maintain ANYTHING, which is why I agree with @Gnusocialjp that this instance will one day be the flagship instance). https://gnusocial.jp/url/26239 is still the flagship instance of lemmy and https://gnusocial.jp/url/1199585 of soapbox, even though neither is currently the largest of either community. (lemmy only recently lost that spot thanks to the #RedditMigration and the OG instance not being particularly welcoming of anyone outside their particular political persuasion).
@simsa03 @gnusocialjp was this post supposed to have images attached to it? Both "classic gnusocialjp" and Qvitter show what appears to be a number of "empty images" (untitled attachment links going nowhere) but on Pleroma nothing shows at all.
@simsa03 yeah, https://gnusocial.jp/url/1199661 still exists, though now it's a Friendica instance. I also recall not long ago reading through some Pleroma documentation that referenced @lain as @lain@quitter.se I missed #EternalSeptember and the original quitter as I had been absent from the 'verse for like 9 years after I thought https://gnusocial.jp/url/200195 had closed up shot. I was incredibly surprised to learn that not only does it still exist but the OG @evan is working on bringing it back by integrating ActivityPub. He had said sometime this summer, so I hope its soon ;-)
I saw that and it's the first time I see such empty boxes on any instance. They seem to appear because I inserted links. With the exception oy youtube video, all links on gnusocial.jp seem to show empty boxes at first (which to me feels intended like some form of CW). When you change to the pleroma backend for gnusocial.fp, the content of the links is shown immediately.
Thank you for the explanation. The storage- and cost factors are very good reasons. You are right: Thumbnails are a bonus, not a requirement. And should people want to have thumbnails in the previews, they can always choose the Pleroma frontend.