@ErikJonker @bear Of course. But when the flagship instance makes a choice, it means something. Should there be a flagship instance? No, that’s a design failure. But there is. So what they do matters. Mastodon.social federating with Meta/Facebook/Threads legitimises Meta/Facebook/Threads. One of the ways we said the fediverse (and Mastodon, initially) was different was that instances would protect people, not just leave them to fend for themselves.