dragonX

If the state of things have though me anything. is that people don't care about it being federated. if they block fediverse instances people won't be so keen to keep hoping from one another. don't forget that not only it is veryhard to buildup large online communities, but once those online connections (social graph) are broken. it will be very hard for them to be revived.
With the fediverse at the moment having very little traction, I bet government bans will be a deadly blow to the fediverse. people will go back to whatever central coercive solution is provided.

To be real mastodon or any other federated network will be easier to shut down than Twitter or Facebook. giant social media platforms benefit from their network effect. if blocked they will cause major problems to Russia ,and will further tarnish its image globally.

In this regard, It could be said that Linux has achieved success for its community. but has fallen victim to this exact community and can't grow to meet other users needs.
There is also an outside market of users waiting and hoping for linux to become one day a viable alternative for their use cases to be able to switch over and free themselves from tech giants. with time, it has become apparent that this is very unlikely to happen. especially now that mobile phones have taken over.

Linux for desktop has missed so many chances over and over again, that I have stopped hoping for it take over.
the last of these was Chrome OS sales taking over Mac OS during the pandemic. Imagine if we had a viable lightweight fully featured Linux distribution with all productivity and office software installed with no drivers and compatibility issues ready to be used at schools. that could have been a real take off. google absorbed that market and is trapping students at early age in their ecosystem.

that’s how many in the Linux community want it to be so there’s no reason to force them otherwise.

Exactly. But you will encounter those same people either shaming, or shoving linux down everyone else throat. when linux by its diversity isn't ready for mass adoption. On one hand they want linux to not change and on the other they expect others to leave the comfort of Mac os and windows and come tinker with the CLI.
I think because the linux community is very tech savy they overlook the reality that most pc users will run to the repair shop when the slightest problem appears even with their office suit.
there is no point telling people to switch to linux because its easier to install while ignoring that most people don't understand what a disk partition or a file system is. This is reality if we want open source desktops to succeed we need to adapt the product to the people and not the other way around.

Fragmntation , a lack of vision and goal is the real problem with the whole open source development community at large.
Because in open source we have freedom, every one is trying to create their own version of software instead of coming together and putting all that hard work towards fewer projects. if all devs pulled their work together into a few distributions, linux could have had a bigger userbase and saved millions of users from the claws and walled gardens of microsoft apple and google. I perceive linux distros as hobby projects rather than real windows OS contenders.
maybe if a foundation was setup to collect funds and distribute those funds against certain goals and milestone to be achieved by the distributions. progress will come faster

• For the fediverse to grow it needs to think out of the box, offer disruptive means of communications and content distribution to carve it self a significant user base to rival tech giants. for now Fediverse projects lack vision and are stuck developing the technicality without taking a creative approach to its development. TikTok went big because it didn't try to copy Facebook and instagram, but offered a different use model. google circles tried to copy facebook, and dispite googles huge userbase it failed.
• For the fediverse to grow and maintain a sustainable user base it needs exclusive content, which content creators aren't willing to make for free, they are more likely to put in the effort for platforms that reward their handwork like Patreon than a wild distributed one like Peertube.
• 99% percent of content creation these days is done with the intent of making profit. so it is hard to convince creators to invest time and money into maintaining instances that will bring them no more than croutons.
• I think it will be hard for the Fedivrese to out grow the niche audience of tech savvy people, and refugee comunities.
  But lets keep positive and keep encouraging the development!

In matrix we have element that is the most up-to-date feature rich and E2EE supported on every platform. other community developped apps could catch up to element but are not essential for the success of matrix.
In XMPP we don't have a cross platform compatible app. which could detract a lot of users. my main concern though are features implemented through add-ons. so users have to investigate each instance to make sure they have access to things like encrypted calls. this is a detremental to XMPP wider adoption.

Matrix is the most promising project in my opinion even though privacy was at the beginning an afterthought. we need as a community to keep pressure on the devs to minimize metadata collection.
For a trial you can sign up to the matrix.org server. just keep in mind to switch to another one once you decide to make matrix your daily driver.
Because matrix.org is the biggest instance, it is subject to a lot of attacks, it has been breached once back when E2EE wasn't active by default.

thanks for the correction, I use wire through tor, and the thing about wire that draw me to use it is the absence of need for a phone number, and the fact that unlike others the app just works with very few hickups.

My rundown
If you want anonymity:
1- element, with a self hosted server , or just on any open instance. There is a lot of metadata storage involved. If you want to run it through tor. mind the IP leakage as it uses WebRTC for voice and video calls
2-Wire: You need to trust the company behind it as server code is closed source, but in terms of usability, It is unbeatable IMO, they store more metadata on you compared to Signal
4- XMPP: you can self host an xmpp server if you have the know how. I have used it but was disappointed, most apps and software handle encryption very poorly. and both you and your interlocutor need to have accounts on servers running the same protocol add-ons. quite a messy situation.
3- Jami: P2P secure private communication, has some connectivity problems. but worth a try with people curious enough to join you in
4- Briar: basic chat app with strong encryption. could be used in a mesh network, suitable for situation like protests and big gatherings.
4- Threema : never used it, to use it you need to pay a subscription fee
6- wikr : they say its good
5- Session: still in its infancy. no video or phone calls yet. it was audited back in the time when it relied on onion routing, now they have switched to LokiNet. that audit is no more valid. + they rolled back on Perfect Forward secrecy.

Phone number registration:
1- Signal: Best in class in terms of conversation encryption. with a lot of features. I might be biased but I don't trust the team, especially with the latest server situation.

Correct. I am of the same opinion that western cultures, because of the relative freedom they enjoy, have been coerced to believe that progress can be achieved through either representative democracy or peaceful protests. but peaceful resistance can only achieve so much in terms of progress. it is never a viable mean to achieving disruptive or revolutionary changes.
When the interests of the ruling class are under a threat. they can revert to taking unprecedented measures. and bring in authoritarian laws that eat away what is left of human rights and freedom.
I personally wouldn't expect much resistance from the people of the U.K, the majority of them are very proud to be ruled by people born with privilege.
As for Ghandi & al. That's what they have been indoctrinating us since early ages at school. they want us to believe that revolution and independence was brought by the peaceful and candid resistance of those public figures and turned them into idols. but with a little bit of critical examination of history many of these great propaganda lies get debunked.