There are a LOT of fedi posters who came from every fringe corner of the internet. KF, 4chan, ED, various smaller message boards and internet groups, you name it. Especially after the implosion of imageboards (which was 50/50 hotwheels and his starfucking crusade, and the "new owner" situation Jim talked about years ago):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVTR8vU71Y
Furthermore, altboards died after Jim handling the events of 2019 very poorly, the webring chaos, and then the schism of Jim and Mark (owner of /v/ who started 8chan.moe as a response to him), and many altboards either being literally dead or having CSAM (real or AI generated, people with the latter have been prosecuted the same) spam if they're not.
While the fedi is not anonymous by any means (especially if you use your known identities, or more importantly host your own thus linking your identity to a server you run), it does have the advantage of actually allowing you to discuss things with less corporate censorship or jannies shutting down/banning people, and this is why people from that part of the internet are using it now.
@PurpCat @eidolon @Forestofenchantment @Inginsub @suquili I still can't see the fedi ever fully replacing imageboards because with complete anonymity, posts are judged by content and not by the user. You can see how even on here, having IDs means that people will block, mute, or just ignore you if they don't like your opinion (and we see this on both "left-wing" and "right-wing" users). IDs give every user a reputation, regardless if they are connected to your real identity or not. Eventually, you have the elite users that people will always listen to and the users who made enough "bad posts" that even if they make a good post, they will still be ignored.
@PurpCat @eidolon @Forestofenchantment @Inginsub @suquili Which is why most 8chan bunkers are hesitant about hosting /pol/ boards. And it seems like the glowies only ever bother fedposting on those types of boards.
As far as I know, the only problem that 8moe had to go through was being dropped by some CDN because the CDN in question was hosted in Russia and the Russian government told them to drop them, so they went with Cloudflare instead.
There are thousands of imageboards and textboards out there. I don't see them going away anytime soon.
@PurpCat @eidolon @Forestofenchantment @Inginsub @suquili And that is what attracts the fedposts. It makes no sense to fedpost on a board like /v/ unless you can come up with some credible threat to blow up a video game studio. But that's another advantage of imageboards (or at least forums in general). If you don't feel like talking about politics 24/7, there are other boards. Sure, political discussions will naturally bleed in, but it's not like here where your feed is 80% talking about the joos, advocating for TND, or talking about the latest distraction.
Which is quite a shame because a few years ago, the fedi seemed a lot more laid-back and open minded compared to other "free-speech" communities, now it's filled with these RW-podcaster types that I find even more cringe than most /pol/ users.
@PurpCat @eidolon @Forestofenchantment @Inginsub @suquili Yeah. All the niche boards are basically gone now. including the other political boards that weren't about NatSoc politics (e.g. /liberty/ and /monarchy/), though the leftypol bunker seems to be going strong.
Though /v/ and /tech/ were the boards that I love to go on the most, so it isn't a huge loss for me.
You'll think twice about hosting one when the FBI gives you another visit.