> "You mean an open-twitter clone that caters to a very niche set of individuals?"
It's not just one instance and not even one frontend existing for what can be described as "fediverse". Decentralization is the whole point.
> "a very niche set of individuals?"
Everything depends on the instance you're using. Some of them, like mastodon.social, are very active, others are not.
> "I hate the whole gimmick of 150 character messages"
Find a better instance. On the one I use it's 2k characters limit.
> "That's not independent web like it was."
Yes, because it's a whole new level of independence. NewGrounds, Myspace and everything you mentioned are centralized platforms, which is practically vendor lock-in, because you're dependent on just one vendor for everything you do on these platforms, while on fediverse, you aren't. Instances are completely (except for showing posts from one another) independent from each other - there's no central "authority" controlling all of them like there would be on a centralized platform. Thousands of them exist for every frontend imaginable, and you can create one yourself.
Well, this research states that "Between 2004 and 2013, Frutiger Aero was influential in
advertising, media, stock images, cinema, gaming, and spatial design". That's page 4.
Who shoves it down someone's throat though? I can't remember the last time I used tiktok, probably 3 or 4 years ago, and I don't feel like anyone forces me to.
Well, this looks legit, as this is a real domain registered in 2022, but I still don't get why would you make a new post on a freshly registered domain after a 3-year pause and immediately submit it to HN.