Decentralization is just an affirmation until they fix the network lock in problem. You're still married to whatever instance you sign up with. The admin limits who you can federate with, and if the policy changes, it requires you to rebuild from scratch if you want to move.

That's what's keeping platforms like Twitter on top even though many of its prolific users now sound more like an abused spouse than anything else.

I still think the vast majority of this concern over abuse is a red herring though. People just don't like it when their curated bubble is pierced by information that contradicts it, and they confuse being corrected with persecution and social status games.

For this reason, I'd like to see the secure-scuttlebutt protocol catch on.

Right now, the patchwork app[1] is really fun to play with, but still a toy, in my mind.

[1] https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork