for a long time, the fediverse has cultivated a culture of strategic illegibility & guided the technical affordances to aid in this illegibility: those who try to become part of the fediverse by making genuine connections are welcomed, but those who try to make large lists, indexes, or archives, or who try to optimize reach or scale-up size, are treated with suspicion

this makes a lot of sense: the culture of the fediverse is a refugee culture. for the first decade, people came here because they felt unwelcome or excluded elsewhere. maps that are readable to outsiders can be used to find and exterminate the vulnerable.

now, for the first time, most people on the fediverse don't understand why people might not want to be found by everyone