BIG NEWS: Pawoo.net, the world's 2nd biggest Mastodon instance, has just been acquired.
The entity acquiring them is the Mask Group, a business that also runs mstdn.jp and mastodon.cloud. They are also active in the so-called "Web 3.0" space.
If you haven't heard of pawoo.net, it's because many instances have de-federated from it.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mask-network-acquires-pawoo-net-070000858.html
Like it or not, it should no longer be assumed that "volunteers" are running your instances.
The Mask Group, which now runs three large instances "has raised over US$50 million from private and institutional backers"—their words not mine.
There's going to be a massive land grab of all these big instances. There will be lots of merging and acquiring too.
My advice is that you all become *very* aware of who owns your instance and why.
Get to know your admins—make sure their values align with your own.
If you don't want to put your social media life in the hands of strangers, then self-host your own instance.
To everyone using mastodon.cloud and mstdn.jp: remember, you're not locked into those instances.
If you want, you can migrate elsewhere.
This is not Twitter—you have a choice regarding where your home will be on the Fediverse.
A warning: there's going to be a concerted effort to re-centralize the Fediverse.
As we've just seen with the acquisition of pawoo.net, that's already happening.
What are you going to do to thwart this trend?
Chris Trottier
Michael Gisiger 
Tessa 🏳️⚧️