Fragmentation on the Fediverse is a real problem.
Hypothetically, let’s say I’m an admin. I don’t like "John Doe" (just a random example). Instead of simply blocking John Doe myself, I demand that "Billy Bob" — the admin of his instance — remove him entirely.
Billy Bob refuses, because John Doe hasn’t broken any rules. So, being an egotistical maniac, I blacklist Billy Bob’s entire instance — 5,000+ innocent users who had nothing to do with anything.
I also have 5,000+ users on my instance. Now you’ve got over 10,000 people who can’t communicate, all because of a personal disagreement.
This kind of thing happens far too often on the Fediverse. If you create more than one account (on different instances), you’ll likely discover people you didn’t even know existed — people you’d want to follow but previously couldn’t, due to the growing fragmentation across the network.
The scale of the problem becomes even more obvious when you move to a different instance. You’ll likely find that not everyone you currently follow can be followed from the new site.
The solution?
Right now, it means having more than one account just to keep in touch with everyone you want to follow.
How crazy is that?