@haikushack that’s why it’s known as federated or decentralized social media! it’s very cool. means I can be on a small instance a friend runs and still talk to one run by someone else, or that I can find small communities specific to my taste but not be cut off from others. also means when there are influxes of users to mastodon.social that other instances continue on fine. also, fediverse isn’t just mastodon (which is the name of the software) - there are other softwares that talk together too
@haikushack it does make it a bit confusing for newcomers, though! definitely a different paradigm than other services