@ube I came here in 2020 so that was before my arrival. I just felt like the fedi was a lot more laid-back and open-minded before Poast arrived (and even a little bit after). I had a bunch of people from different views and lifestyles following me. I felt like a lot of the people who have left either couldn't stand Poast's constant /pol/-spazzing and dogpiling, or just fell for the "Elon Musk is our free speech savior" psyop.
My main issue with Poast is that most of the users seem to come from podcast communities like TRS, KillStream, or MisterMetokur. All of whom I've grown to despise over the years because it's all just politispazzing and e/lolcow-drama and they still obsess over these grifters like it's 2018.
like poast had a corner and they make things worse, sure, but man, it's recovering a bit, but a lot of the best posters and some of my friends were driven off by incessant harassment and defamation by kiwifags, i despise them. they larp as moralfags as their excuse, but they're far worse, they just want to hurt anybody who's not "normal", which you know it's fedi, most aren't! poast can be a bit harassy sometimes, but mostly their just chuddy, they haven't caused nearly the level of harm in terms of making fedi toxic as hell and destroying site culture and driving off posters. so, personally i find them to be that cancer imho. poast sure doesn't help, but they're not that bad in comparison. i never hear people who used to be well loved posters saying they were driven off by poast users, it's always kfcc and offshoot users. always.