> It always comes back to the userbase. I don't know how many times technologists need to learn the lesson that normal people simply don't care about ideological technical principles like decentralization and often actually prefer the benefits of centralized systems like ease of use and typically stronger moderation.

The choice need not be limited to the familiar corporate hellscape vs decentralized usability nightmare dichotomy. Middle grounds can exist if we want them to.

I've seen a lot of general support for the criticisms and concepts described in this article:

https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/

Anyone who builds what they describe there can expect it to take off faster than ever.