In the past I've slightly disparaged Mastodon/ActivityPub's data model & replication protocol, compared to aforementioned Dat, IPFS, Secure Scuttlebutt, BitTorrent DHT, et al., but have concluded that, for me and some friends (small N), Mastodon has succeeded tremendously in providing a home where I don't have to worry about "the rando problem" that substack is struggling with:
https://viewer.scuttlebot.io/%25OkgDsogCxesWEWn77Znu2alWlqNTpZVgRI4AWxcckBc%3D.sha256
Alanna is basically describing a well-run Mastodon instance here: https://viewer.scuttlebot.io/%25bM6TrtRhduWNQcm%2BfOsgHpzcp%2F0olJjgqo3l14FM4GM%3D.sha256
So shoutout to @CobaltVelvet and all the others making Octodon a good home for us to hang our hats. Thank you.