You both make such great points here. I’ve definitely had those times I felt like a post that’s upvoted to the front page is really an advertisement. And within thread comments it has become almost impossible to know who is genuine, a troll, or a literal bot - along with being pretty toxic for a long time.

At the same time, there are some extraordinary communities and knowledge repositories that might be difficult to replicate in the fediverse. For example, I can’t yet envisage how a highly factual community like Ask Science, or such, might work. But I love the retro feeling I’m getting here - of discovering a new, blossoming internet community - and the fact that there are seemingly real people behind the posts. lol.