Earlier quoted context omitted.
> By another proxy, this means Aether avoids the issue of having a ‘middle management’ (...) so no one can control what you see. This right here is the main thing that will never let any fully-decentralized system become mainstream. Two problems: - Most people do want "middle-management". They don't want to deal with security risks, technical issues, understanding how the protocol works just to be able to share memes…
The trade-off is that when you run your own instance you have to then attract users to it for it to be useful, which burdens others. In a fully decentralized network you can meet new people and moderate your own view of the world without putting any burden on others to adapt to what you want. Moderation can be done with a system like this: https://adecentralizedworld.com/2020/06/a-trust-and-moderati...
This really depends on the design. Email is "federated" but that doesn't require you to get anybody else to use your email server in order for you send or receive emails with them.
What I'd kind of like to see is a system that separates hosting and accounts from moderation.
So you have a host, like email, and a username on the host. Then you have a forum, which has operators/moderators (who are users), but the forum is host-independent. Maybe it only actually runs on a specific host at a given time, but the operators can move it without anybody noticing and anybody can use it regardless of who their own host is.
It makes it so you can be a forum operator without having to be a host.