Okay, this is possibly going to be controversial in some quarters, but it has to be said for the good of the Fediverse:

Mastodon.social is not a good way to join Mastodon. If you're already on mastodon.social, you might want to move your account to another server. I've done an article about this topic at:

➡️ https://fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-idea-to-join-a-big-server

If you want to move your account, there's a complete step-by-step guide to how to do it here:

➡️ https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server

#FediTips #Mastodon #MastodonSocial

Mastodon.social is not a good way to join Mastodon. If you’re already on it, you might want to move your account to a different Mastodon server. | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse

An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediverse

@FediTips I basically agree with this, but …

Considering that the Fediverse is fashioned after Internet email to an extent, isn’t it almost inevitable that mastodon.social (or some other dominant server in future, with enough users and a slightly tweaked feature set) will become the gmail of the Fediverse?

I wouldn’t recommend either mastodon.social or gmail to anyone, but most people (and I’m not totally immune to this) love the feeling of ‘safety in numbers’ (among other reasons for going with a popular choice)

@transponderings

The whole point of federation is that no particular instance is central.

That point becomes lost if any particular instance becomes central by default.

Like, look at Twitter. There are still people on there because all the people they know are on there.

Same with Facebook.

A default instance is anathema to federation.

@FediTips