If the philosophy is the point, it's a dead platform. Utopian ideals are fine, if that's your thing. Shaming people who don't share them is just rude. I don't see how you can compare the platform to the democratic process and not expect the same warts you see in democracies. A few people care a lot, some people care a bit, most people barely care at all. Grandstanding will never change that.
I've said it in a sibling post, but I don't believe our political systems are perfect models of democracy but are closer to benevolent dictatorships. It's comfortable, but that's not xhat the fediverse is about. There are plenty of centralized platforms with exactly the same problems as reddit, the fediverse is about building something else.
If there are no successful, extant examples, then I don't think it's a good basis for anything. As I said, it's a Utopian ideal. That's fine, but it's not practical (and it's not trying to be).
I think there are going to be incredibly valuable lessons-learned from these federated models, and interesting things will happen there. However, all of that will be capitalized by a nimble, forward-thinking, idealistic-yet-centralized model that gets rid of all the ideological cruft and polishes a real, useful, and engaging product.
You need to define what "successful" means, because I feel we don't have the same definition. To me, being able to control the medium and communicate with the people I'm interested in is already a success. The fediverse is home to millions of people and is open for anyone to join. It's not a product, because "products" suck; it's a system that involves people and is under constant evolution.
The "product" mentality is the cancer that led us to where we are. We must get rid of it.
> I think there are going to be incredibly valuable lessons-learned from these federated models, and interesting things will happen there.
I totally agree with that. The control an admin has over an instance is still problematic, and someone shared something about confederated protocols (https://nexus.blacksky.network/zine/00000001/confederal-prot...) and that is an interesting way forward.
