So, it seems like every time I give the Fediverse a try, discourse starts going wild, and the quality of posts in general goes so far down that it really isn't worth my time, much less the drain on my mental health. It's becoming just like Twitter, including the outright hostility and vitriol that I saw on Twitter. And that's not a good thing.

The place isn't federated. It's fragmented. And it's constantly becoming more and more fragmented with every passing day.

I just don't see any value in staying there. Not when I feel completely wiped out, and even depressed, by the time I'm done scrolling through the first ten or so updates on any one of my timelines. And I know tools exist to help filter out things, but they don't work when people use their words as a moving target to get around such filters. The whole thing has become a frustrating war of fighting against the network itself, when what I really should be doing is not playing at all.

Twitter had reach and audience as its draws for someone like me. I could have at least used it to self-advertise as an indie author, even without interacting with the horrid people that occupy much of it. With the Fediverse, I don't even have that as a draw. I never know when my audience might be cut off, or cut down, or even that I'd have much reach outside of the local instance, not to mention the abusive vocalists who attack people just for advertising their Patreon or Ko-Fi links. So what would be the point of even trying there?

And I tried... I tried five times to give the Fediverse a chance for my needs. And all five times, I've come out with worse mental health than when I went in. That's not a good record at all. And I don't feel safe in the slightest there. Not because of the admins of the instances I go to, but because of the Fediverse in general. It's just not worth the strain on my heart, or the heightened blood pressure and anxiety, that I get just looking at any of the timelines.

At least I can follow...some people via RSS. Not everyone, since that seems to be a thing that keeps getting taken away from non-Mastodon instances, and some don't even allow following from the web at all... Yeah... Standards aren't really standards.

Regardless, I don't think I want to go back. Not with the hellscape it tends to become at the drop of a hat.