Calligrafae@harriorrihar @denmanrooke @Stealcase @Sylvhem No, I mean, the other software still federates with all the mastodon and other fediverse instances - like your .art account does now - it just won't be running mastodon software, it'll be running other software that does the same thing. Plenty of people here self-host on single-user instances and still have access to the entire fediverse and grow large followings ^.^
Stealcase@welshpixie @[email protected] @denmanrooke @Sylvhem You're right: I can totally start my own server and connect it to the fediverse, devoid of crypto funding.
But "normal" people aren't going to do that.
They're gonna see who funds Mastodon, "the flagship of the Fediverse", and decide that it looks like the dark-web, funded by nasty sources, and forever be put off by it.
They won't know better.
It's a PR problem, not a Tech problem.