Gregory's Server
since a lot of folks are becoming newly interested in escaping corporate silos and moving to community-based services, are you aware of @matrix?
Matrix is to Slack and Discord, what Mastodon is to Twitter: a decentralized, federated network based on open standards/specs. It also supports full end-to-end encryption, just like Signal, so you can exchange messages privately!
If you find the fediverse interesting/inspiring, I recommend giving matrix a whirl. The quickest way to get started is to head over to https://app.element.io/ and make a (free!) account (although you can also join any number of other home servers, or host your own--they all talk to each other!).
If you _do_ end up checking it out, please do say hi! I'm @zkat:zkat.tech over there. I also manage a "space" (a group of channels, kinda like a Discord server) that you can join by clicking here: https://matrix.to/#/!tKdDSgQTxQzcOuTXqV:matrix.org?via=zkat.tech&via=matrix.org&via=envs.net
I hope this sparks your interest! I'd love to see you over there, too!
some other thoughts: someone on here recently referred to the Mastodon migration as a good example of the whole dual power philosophy: setting up healthy, community-based alternatives to the current systems of power, ready to have people fall back to them (and all their benefits), when they're finally forced out of the current power structures.
I think building that out for Matrix, even if it doesn't completely replace all your communities (yet!) is something that is worth getting started with right now! It doesn't hurt to get yourself a Matrix account, after all, and you might find some community and discover you like it a lot! (I do! I wish my Discord communities lived there!)
some other thoughts: someone on here recently referred to the Mastodon migration as a good example of the whole dual power philosophy: setting up healthy, community-based alternatives to the current systems of power, ready to have people fall back to them (and all their benefits), when they're finally forced out of the current power structures.