Here's a deep dive into the politics of protocols - including the ActivityPub protocol that Mastodon instantiates https://connectedplaces.online/the-purpose-of-protocols/ Funded by NLnet. It says the protocol design community > has developed exceptional sophistication about technical architecture and individual rights while remaining largely inarticulate about collective governance. It notes > ActivityPub delegates governance to the instance level and assumes that local accountability will produce acceptable outcomes at the network level, though nothing in the protocol ensures this. ATProto relies on competition between service providers as a sufficient governance mechanism, which presupposes that the market conditions for meaningful competition will materialize. Matrix has gone furthest toward institutional governance, placing a foundation in the role of commons custodian. Is a heavy read but worth studying by social.coop ppl for example . What must the coop provide, that the protocol neglects?