I lurked because everything I had to say had already been said, or so it seemed.

Seems like, with less users, that’s less likely to happen. Been nice.

Is this a TechnologyConnections reference? haha

Mm. My thinking is that many of those coming are going to, inevitably, compare with their sign up experience with Reddit and other platforms.

This whole “federated” thing is already novel and is going to require a learning curve — which for lots of folks will already bring apprehension. Anything unusual, like a manual review process, could be a turn off.

That, plus the sort of privacy nuts that live on Reddit (“why am I here? What is this, immigration? none of your business”), makes for more and more friction IMO.