It's easy to get nostalgic for the Quitter era fediverse of 2015-16, which was smaller and mosly consisting of some anti-capitalists and Free Software holdouts in the smoldering ruins of StatusNet. Some people from that time dropped off the map as it got bigger and noisier. But actually I think the fediverse is better now because its a lot more diverse, and has somewhat successfully absorbed multiple waves of casualties from Twitter and Facebook.