a lot of these takes seem to come from people with large audiences who joined mastodon and treated it just like twitter and were mortified to find out what life without the allowances of a blue-check was actually like, but who also refused to move to an instance with a team of engaged moderators

It does not surprise me if the biggest critics on mastodon are also the ones who picked the dotSocial instance. Like duh.

Exactly exactly exactly. I’ve struggled to put this into words but I’ve had precisely this thought. Well said.

Do you know of any active Brazilian-focused instances that are good? I searched around but never found any that felt the moderation made it safe or was active enough Being in a social media where so many of its users are from the global north can feel alienating, I've got enough of that on cohost

idk man. maybe you're right. maybe everyone on fedi sucks. maybe i suck, too. but those are my friends you're talking about, and people who cared enough to keep me housed during the worst period of my life, and who helped make the launch of my game a success, so i don't fucking believe you

That's certainly a part of it; I will say, to date, one of Mastodon's great strengths (and weaknesses) is the high learning curve. Unless you're particularly tech-literate or a quick learner, you have to WANT to be there to make it work. Those hurdles inherently act as a filter, for better or worse.