Gregory's Server@the_Effekt It's a bit hyperbolic to position Eugen as a dictator. He's trying to solve a problem a lot of higher profile users here were citing as as an urgent problem that he needed to fix because no easy onboarding was turning people off. As reporters continually mislabeled the fediverse Mastodon, Mastodon was going to to be a target.
He's also just a guy doing a thing, even if he got "lucky" in the open social sweepstakes by being at the right place at the right moment. @rysiek
@Lucinda @the_Effekt I've been defending him exactly this way for 5 years and honestly I am quite tired by now.
I don't see nor paint him as a dictator. But m.s has an outsized influence on fedi, Mastodon-the-software has an outsized influence on fedi, and Gargron controls both. He makes certain decisions — like making m.s *the* default — ignoring people saying this is a bad idea. So gets to deal with consequnces of these decisions. As they affect everyone else on fedi.