I just loooove how pppl believe that whether something has VC-funding or is federated has any effect at all on how people pick software and systems to use.

I mean, users don’t even not care, because “caring vs not caring” assumes that the metric they can care about or not mentally exists in their context for judging a decision. Which it does not. Which is a very important part so many software designers of user-facing software forget, to users a short-form posting instance is a tool. A hammer. You use the one you got. Once it becomes defunct, you get a new one. You pick one that all your friends use, because hey, must be great if everyone uses it. Does it have some downsides? Maybe, but frankly it’s a hammer who cares?!