I've had 20 sign ups to my Mastodon server in the past 48 hours, and 100% of them have been scammers, phishers and SEO spammers.
I make an effort to go in and suspend the accounts, nobody ever protests the suspension.
The fediverse is at a crossroads, the user base is dwindling and the new users are mostly just SEO spam accounts.
I think this is mainly because a lot of users are quitting social media entirely. This is not isolated to just mastodon from what I can tell.
Like I lost contact to a lot of online acquaintances so far because they deleted ALL of their social media and went entirely offline.
Based on my own experience and after talking to a larger circle of friends and acquaintances, this is my belief as well.
The prevailing sentiment is: With the world going to shit, why am I spending hours online when I could spend it with loved ones?
Kevin Beaumont
Klaus Frank
Zeljka Zorz