Okay, your explanation makes sense. I still don't think saying that Mastodon would merge with Meta is even close to correct, as there are a lot of other instances besides mastodon.social and mastodon.online, but I at least understand the sentiment now.

FWIW I left Mastodon shortly after I tried it because I have the opposite opinion of you; he didn't implement search fast enough! I actually liked Twitter before that one guy took over. But I also understand those that are looking for a quieter, more private place.

Where did you read that Mastodon is merging with Meta? If you're talking about Threads being launched, I am pretty sure that all the drama was about whether any Fediverse/ActivityPub instance, whether it be Mastodon, Misskey, Firefish, would federate with Threads. Even Lemmy instances like Beehaw could choose to federate with Threads, but probably the compatibility would not be great.

That said, I do think it's important to find an instance with federation policies that match what you're looking for. If Beehaw wants to isolate itself and be its own thing in order to protect its users, I'm sure many people will appreciate that, perhaps even you! I'm on the fence whether that's what I'm looking for, myself.

I had also put this in the OP for convenience 😉

Personally I avoid Uber Eats. It's way too expensive. I haven't used the ride share service much for several years. Without looking much into the prices, I feel like they've lost much of their edge over traditional taxi service, but I do still like the convenience of being able to use their app almost anywhere in the US, at least. I should probably give Lyft a look at some point.

There's Antennas, although they may not be exactly what you're looking for since they're in a separate location from your main feed.

I like it and think it has a lot of potential, but at least with Lemmy I've encountered a lot of bugs. I want to also try Mastodon and have yet to delve into it.

I saw this and was surprised that this sort of thing is allowed. Shouldn't debates be about the debate itself? I feel sorry for kids these days with having to be so careful with an online presence.

I've read several people complain over the last year or so that Google's results have been getting worse and they add site:reddit.com or similar to improve the results. I use a search engine called Kagi that includes a "lens" to see forum results only which is neat. I wonder if this is Google's attempted answer.

Google has a bad reputation for killing its own products, to be sure. This is a part of Search, though, so I think less likely to die. If the results are terrible, and users don't click on them, I bet you are right!

Were you notified that you were approved? The policy was challenged and is now awaiting SCOTUS decision. I think folks were expecting a decision either this Thursday or Friday, or perhaps next Thursday or Friday. We'll see, though.