That’s a community/mindset issue, not a fediverse issue I think. It was useful because that’s where the people went, so if the people went somewhere else, the niche communities would thrive there just the same I’d think.
Over the last 10 or so years this centralized mindset has really taken a big hold. Before sites like Reddit, Twitter, FB, etc. existed, the internet was basically all niche communities that all had their own space.
I think especially for niche communities the fediverse could be a fantastic opportunity.

it warms my heart to see so many people slowly figuring this out. This is what the internet was meant to be all along.

Just save your instance as “reddit”/“apollo”/whatever on your phone. This is the trick they wish you didn’t know.

Don’t forget us kbin users too! We’re all in the same boat now

sshhhh don’t tell my boss I’m here

Defederation I believe is a really powerful tool. More so than it seems. It creates islands of a sort and you can be more or less assured that your interests are respected. If they’re not you move to an instance that federates with likeminded individuals. Makes it so much easier to isolate bad actors since they tend to group together. And then you disconnect from them and suddenly a whole avalanche of problems simply goes away. Moderation is obviously necessary but it is much more of a community effort. Keep in mind that most admins and mods are here because they want to use the forum just like you do. Your interests align much more than if a vc backed company Hosts your community with the singular goal of extracting as much value out of you as they can in whatever way available.

Someone posted a link a while ago to an article called killing community. I believe it speaks what I’ve been thinking for a while. I’ve quit so many social media over such a long time but I’m also part of a small community of friends. We Have our own little corner of the internet with file sharing and things like password manager and chat server and so on. We’ve been going strong for 15 years and going. Growth at all costs destroys communities.

I believe it just felt more pseudo anonymous because of how lively discussions can get, but nothing stops you from going back through peoples accounts and getting a feel for them. If you’d like to post something completely anonymously here you arguably have even more choice since you could set up accounts on entirely different instances with an entirely new name and nobody would know who you are. So I think it’s a mentality problem and not exactly a technical thing. You can be anonymous here too. :)

I don’t think I will ever forget my icq number

If a game has flaws it has character.

Hi from a kbin instance!

Hehe, the joys of troubleshooting and profiling. Isn’t it fun?

Yup, you can definitely extend this way past social media. Whatever it is, if it works for you, don’t let anyone tell you that it shouldn’t. It’s too easy to get swept up in opinions of the masses. I like quiet spaces. You hear much more there.

Also don’t let media tell you that something is dead.
If people are using it, it’s not dead.
If you’re getting value out of it, it’s not dead.
Something doesn’t need to have half the world using it to not be dead.