How is that going to protect the space?

Because it isn't a singular space. An instance that goes bad can be tethered from the rest of the wider network, and abandoned, leaving it on its own.

I can start an instance right now. But that doesn’t mean it will have any kind of importance. If I can create new spaces, and let’s say it grows, wouldn’t the problems from the first instance just carry over.

I don't know what you mean by "problems with the first instance".

An instance doesn't need to federate with others.

I've long surmised that the future of lemmy / activitypub is a fragmented one. Federation only works if everyone instances are participating in good faith. There are instances that are generally not federated with because they do not participate in good faith.

If at any point you feel that "billionaires" are encroaching on your experience, there will always be a next refuge.

I can defederate from those instances. Problem solved. So can you.

Numbers and engagement matters

What does one do with numbers and engagement on the Fediverse?

The "swing to the hard right" comes as soon as more normies arrive. There are basically two ways this goes:

a) badly behaved normies get the boot. comes with the side effect of keeping the cost for instance admins low and the work for mod teams small, but also means that we stay a niche. I have no issues with this.

b) normies come here and do as they always do. this is your scenario. Since normies - since they are normies - will simply swarm to single instances, as we saw at the API exodus, the rest of the fediverse will sooner or later defederate from those single instances if they aren't able to keep their normie horde in check. This is fine, actually. If i really want to look at something only the normies are talking about, i can simply fire up my normie-instance account and see all i want.

Since we have a simple mechanism of keeping badly behaved instances in check, i cannot see how your scenario actually comes to fruit.

If you're wanting a planned in advance ideal solution, that's not really possible, but people can collectively respond to problems as they happen and adapt, as long as they aren't constrained from doing so.

I believe the pattern and tactics you describe are always going to be more effective on a platform controlled by a company like Reddit, because any efforts to counter them are ultimately limited by the agenda of the platform owners. There are people on Reddit trying to investigate and call out deceptive commercial spam, but when the spammers block them to prevent a response, set their post history to be unreadable, buy moderator positions, and admins only care about their own power and profitability (cutting users off from api etc), the deck is stacked against them. In the end it's just not their website.

Ultimately this is an organizational challenge, not only a technical or platform design challenge. If the organization is a collection of users who generally want genuine non-manipulative interaction between real people, and the protocol is set up to make it easy for them to route around malicious attempts to usurp control, that doesn't mean immediate victory over adversaries but it is a big leg up.

This is a lefty space

Is it? Which lefties? People dogpile on the ML creators all day, every day. Personally, I'm mostly okay with the M and hate the L from my understanding of each. But they still decided to let us all hang out here.

I want change, but I'm nearing 50 and not in great physical shape. There's only so much revolution I can do. I try to educate the public on things I think are important and to try to get them to internalize value in the things that they might want to protect for future generations. Fundraising, logistics, and mobilizing aren't my strengths. I don't know many people that could do that stuff really well. Lots of us are here because we're fairly introverted and are here having these conversations anonymously with strangers. If being revolutionary was easy, we'd either be in a lot less (or a lot more) turmoil than we're in now. Most of us can't make it our whole "thing."

We could and should be doing more to speak to what kind of voices we will or won't tolerate here in the communties though. I'm getting some heat for defending the big game hunter even though I don't agree with what he stood for, but I feel people were pushing a lot of internalized anger at the system onto this random guy who seemingly did nothing ethically wrong. I could have shut up and moved on, but this is a topic I feel I understand more than the average person here and was willing to call them out on their indecent behavior even if it means they're going to hate me or think less of me now. There's plenty of people they could wish harm upon and while I'm not the type to join in, there's a number of people I could name where I wouldn't be sad if they were gone, but this guy seemed fair innocuous in the grand scheme.

Lemmy is far from the last chance we have. Three years ago, 95% of us didn't have this, but we still tried to do our thing somewhere else. Piefed in providing great opportunity for those that still want to interact with Lemmy without some of the baggage. And more apps and forums will continue to pop up. You can always start an old school forum as well with myBB or what have you. That may be a better style of platform for something like what you want to see anyway since it's more specific, but at the same time, it narrows the audience potential greatly. While I don't necessarily support or condemn what cowbee, for example, promotes, I think the way they can appear in tangentially related posts and have a prepared means to unobtrusively yet powerfully share their beliefs to potentially receptive people is a solid example for others looking to do something similar. Keep looking around, see what works and what doesn't, and keep going for what you believe. You can do it here, somewhere else, all of the above, whatever. Be passionate and be helpful and receptive and you will get people to listen to you. It may not be to the extent you want very often, but we gotta take the wins we can get. Stay strong, and try to stay positive.

What are people on the left doing.

You also have to remember that there isn't just some single entity of "left". And I don't mean only the ideological divides even, I mean there's tons of different cultures with different political cultures in them. What even "being left" means is wildly different if you compare USA or some random nation elsewhere.

This platform is mostly USAians yes, but not only. Do you mean american leftist unity? Because looking for some sort of general left unity is a lot more complicated than unity inside a single political system

Maybe I watch too many movies, but the more politically active I plan to be, the more my online presence will fall in line with the "cute pic" people. The internet is for cat pics, surveillance, and shouting into the void. Real change needs to happen outside now.