I know what it’s like to depend on the food bank. The ones in my area suck, but it’s something. These people now have nothing.

I call universities white collar vocational schools because that’s what they’ve become.

The “studies” degrees and other liberal arts programs hearken to an earlier understanding of the university as being a place of higher learning. In the US, our view of post-secondary education has changed in recent decades and we now look at university degree programs largely as white collar vocational training. The old higher learning paradigms still exist, but now there is a societal expectation that they prove their economic value. Knowledge and wisdom no longer have inherent value, only that which can be exploited by capital. Higher learning in its traditional modality is a luxury.

It would help to change the nomenclature. Joining a Facebook “group” makes sense to anybody. Change insider jargon like “instance” to seeker-friendly verbiage like “village.”

With all those fluids, do you get up to pee like 19 times throughout the night? I would.

No war but gas war!

I think changing the verbiage from “server” to “village” or “herd” or “neighborhood,” or just something more familiar to the non-techie, combined with your proposal of displaying a full welcome feed of suggested material would go a long way to improving retention and marketability. Other fediverse portals can learn this lesson too.