It seems the fediverse is continuing and growing again. Line go up is probably good!
https://fediverse.observer/stats&months=50
Total users are huge now.
There are many websites out there that pull data from the fediverse. So take that with a grain of salt. But anecdotally I am seeing a small rise in people using the various platforms as each get more mature and servers somewhat stabilize.
Hacker news has been a nice place to browse. Yes a lot of the people are the most AI silicon valley brained ghouls but its offset by the entertainment of seeing them earnestly say the quiet part out loud. and because the forum has rules about sincerity thoughtful engagement you can open a thread and actually read a good discussion with intelligent comments.
Hacker news generally flags and shuts down posts critical of tech bros, capitalism, or the right wing.
Lobste.rs is a better alternative to HN.
There is a no politics rule but I see plenty of anti right wing, critical of tech bro and capitalism posts. The posts getting flagged are generally pretty low effort garbage.
I wonder what it says about social media that a news aggregator started in 2007 whose minimalist interface hasn't changed much since then and which is operated by a venture capital firm to shovel ads for their own investments is literally peak social media for a certain demographic. Like, maybe that's all that's really needed. There should be a news aggregator for people who like cars or for people who like knitting or whatever and they should all look and behave just like Hacker News. A car company just needs to start one of these and do good moderation. Bingo. Social media is solved. Go home. It's over. All the ideas since then? Microblogging? ActivityPub? Subreddits/communities? Apps? It's all unneeded.