@Solobasssteve I know when I first signed on, mastodon.social was having some trouble handling the load. On principle, I like the idea of not putting too much control and not too much responsibility/cost in the hands of any one sysop.

Also, I like that the local timelines feel like little neighborhoods.

Also, federation doesn't appear to run flawlessly yet, so local toots from the users I folllow seem to more consistently show up than federated posts. That'll hopefully change.