This week, the Catholic Church wrote one of the better diagnoses of why decentralised social networks keep struggling.

…the collaboration between instances on things like moderation is virtually nonexistent. There is no form of federated diplomacy, or even a mental framework on how servers should interact, besides defederation when you get too annoyed with another server…

… [On the other hand, with BlueSky there is the opposite failure mode:] solidarity without subsidiarity is the benevolent provider of infrastructure: one big network that takes care of everyone and quietly removes their agency."