Thank you, op, for bringing sanity to this whole thing.
Relatedly, this is why I think every "new" social media service that isn't Mastodon is barking up the most wrong tree with "take everything with you," you're essentially helping to build an even harder to erase social history.
Mastodon's individual server model, like email's, is better PRECISELY because each node is a point of "failure." That makes erasure easier. Which is good.
No one owning your data isn't any better than everyone owning your data.
That's not true. Mastodon replicates all your posts to a bunch of other servers you don't control by design, which makes them harder to erase.
It's no worse than normal internet publishing, but it doesn't magically solve the erasure question.
Yep. And you still de-anonymise yourself with Mastodon when you buy hosting and a domain. If you use an existing provider, then you're back at square one and living in hope that the provider doesn't keep logs etc, or just decide they don't like you.
Nostr fixes both of these. So whilst you're at the mercy of relays storing your data, you can at least be anonymous.