We’re trying our best to build a place on the internet where association is more voluntary, where we can be ourselves without getting dumped on by people who don’t think we deserve to exist, where we can say with more (but not perfect) surety that we aren’t being spied on. I think(?) it’s the last point you’re challenging: ActivityPub is not the right protocol for what we’re trying to accomplish. You are technically right, but it’s what we have, and you can’t really blame us for feeling uncomfortable when people try to do things with our data that makes us feel uncomfortable.

What’s given the fediverse a place outside the corporate internet was, for a long time, the fact that it seemed irrelevant. That’s slowly starting to change now. People are coming into the fediverse who don’t share the same ideals, while plenty have been around for quite a while. We do what we can to keep our part of the fediverse a safe space

Now, what’s scary is that we’re getting to a point where it looks like we might be outnumbered, and the tools we’ve built over the years are being turned against us. Such is free software, but it hurts, and I do believe we have a right to be hurt, and to refuse to associate with people who hurt us.