Corporate online social networks ultimately aim to increase profits, so they inevitably enshitify themselves. Meanwhile, the federated system allows users to switch instances or even create their own should their current main instance become unappealing. It also allows users to join several instances simultaneously, allowing users to tailor their experiences based on purpose and privacy.
Here we have a great example of how the discourse is not much better in the federated universe. The majority of people are not shopping for “liberal” or “conservative” instances because they were told they would be able to mold a unique and better experience in the federated universe. Yet, here we are having to not only block bad subs and users but whole instances and there really is no way to keep the bad out of your curated sub/instance. It’s the same cat and mouse game just much worse because of the federated universe. Bad actors are abusing this more and more and they’re winning.