Based on two unscientific polls I conducted here, people's biggest fears about the future of the Fediverse are: 1) volunteer moderator burnout; 2) too much defederation causes fragmentation; 3) people are driven away by racism; and 4) Mastodon.social gets too big.

Here are the polls:
https://wandering.shop/@annaleen/110318754714238485
https://wandering.shop/@annaleen/110318806416458197

Annalee Newitz 🍜 (@[email protected])

What is your biggest worry about the future of the Fediverse? [ ] mastodon.social gets too big [ ] Tumblr federates & sells ads against Masto content [ ] Bluesky [ ] too much defederation causes fragmentation

The Wandering Shop
@annaleen I love that the top concerns include both too much fragmentation and too much concentration.

@ntfbscott @annaleen

Well decentralisation is arguably unfragmented and unconcentrated provided it is mostly interconnected. So I’d say these results aren’t inconsistent.

There’s almost certainly a conversation to be had on what it means to have the configuration of instances, often fairly large, and the defederation practices that we have.

While blocking is a fundamental and protective aspect of the fediverse, fragmentation is probably a real phenomenon people are feeling.