Spam (like the torrent of cryptoscamspam lots of people got this morning) has been very rare for me here (and dealt with quickly), but I've noticed that almost all of the spam I've gotten has been via Mastodon's DM feature.

I really wish there was a way to turn DMs off or at least restrict them to people I follow. Control over incoming DMs was a thing Twitter did better than here.

Please stop telling me about the "block DMs from people you don't follow" checkbox. I know about that. It doesn't work properly. It results in people THINKING they've sent you a message that you never actually see.
Because this is Mastodon, I'm now getting people lecturing me on why this obviously broken behavior is "correct".

Another way DMs are hopelessly broken: if your handle is mentioned anywhere in a DM, you get a copy.

Yes, I understand why (technically) it might work that way. That doesn't mean it's not broken.

DMs here are a dumpster fire of buggy behavior and non-intuitive semantics.

@mattblaze When I view my own profile while logged in, “DMs” that I’ve sent appear in my replies as if they were publicly visible on my profile. Talk about heart attack material.
@andrewfeeney The whole mechanism is probably broken beyond repair by the architecture.