Honestly, this kind of thing should be done automatically by whatever app they sign up with. It’s not something that the average person will really know how to choose.

Because it’s not only number of users, it’s also number of connections to other servers, how many federate with it. Most people don’t wanna use a social network where they have to type exactly what they want in to search it every time. Never mind the different policies about posting and de-federation that can completely change how the network works for each user.

It’s the disadvantage of decentralizion, and we’ve gotta band-aid it somehow.

Yep, especially for young people in the United States.

People have become so attached to “one place only for everything” that something as simple as blue/green bubbles (and associated service differences) will be enough to isolate.

The messiah of maximal convenience makes differentiation harder and harder for everyone.

(And for everyone who says “Everyone here just uses Telegram/Whatsapp/QQ/Line, not a problem over here!”, guess what, you’re still probably gonna be exclusionary to other services just like the blue/green folks. It just doesn’t happen to affect you.)

Because an ad or a subscription is more obvious.

Algorithms are harder to prove and don’t interrupt the flow of content, thus less people get pissed, which means less people leave, and they can charge higher rates to advertisers.