Hi there. In these times, folks are becoming more aware on how the social media companies are tracking their activity online, and selling the data for AI training purposes. They're getting tired of being sold to third parties as a product, instead of being the customers or users of these platforms.
Sadly, Mastodon is losing its chance to become a real alternative to this business model. Why? Because the majority of users, me included, are no less sick and tired of online radical politics, regardless of orientation, being forced 24/7 upon them. They just want a friendly conversation on life, job and hobby topics... and perhaps also opt-in from time to time on the denser subjects of social and political issues. Mastodon claims to be ad-free... but in fact, the majority of contents over there can still be considered political ads disguised as personal takes.
An example: I went to instances.social, picked up spanish language... users and content were just the default. And this was the very first entry coming out:
"Todon.nl is een radicaal linkse anti-autoritaire Mastodonserver. Wij verwelkomen anarchisten, socialisten, (klimaat)activisten, LHBTQIA+-personen, milieubewuste mensen, intersectionelen, antiracisten, antifascisten, antikapitalisten, veganisten, piraten, mensenrechtenactivisten, enz. Als ze maar radicaal, links én anti-autoritair zijn".
The default instance on most of the Mastodon apps for the phone, is equally focused on radical politics in the feed, and its not reflective of the interests of the general public as a whole, but rather alienating. This is a boon to Zuckerberg and Musk... not to the majority of users, open source, or internet privacy. It is not surprising, given this fact, that Mastodon moderators have repeatedly tended to ban the users for the most perplexing reasons (likely because of not being politically radical enough). Regardless, not the way an alternative to the mainstream social media should ever be.
Everybody should be able to enjoy a conversation in a wide array of controversial topics if they desire to, but users should be able to opt-in, not being forced-in. Unless this changes, so that Mastodon becomes a truly welcoming site (even for the people who're sick of ideology being fed into their throats, which are many), there's no chance for it to become the alternative to commercial social media that it aims to be.
Man came to his doctor and said "Doctor, it hurts when I do this".
Doctor said "don't do this".
Don't join instances you're not comfortable being on. Don't follow accounts or hashtags or feeds that are regularly posting content you're not interested in.
Guess what: a lot of people want to talk politics, including (for some) radical politics. I don't see how trying to curtail that at the platform level can possibly be to the benefit of the platform growth; though there are apparently instances out there for which political talk is anathema.