Growth is important to any social media ecosystem because you have to hit a critical mass of users to continue meaningfully existing - particularly, you have to have enough users to convince content creators to leave their current environment, since they’re the most likely to be entrenched where they are.

That said, the distinction is that to a corporate/capitalist social media platform, infinite and exponential growth is the goal. To a FOSS social media platform, growth is simply a by-product of the real goal of meeting a public need.

I think the feeling of exclusivity that comes with being early to any scene is neat, but more users means more diversification of instances and communities, and we’ll get to see the blossoming of hyper-specific, idiosyncratic, often deranged communities that made up the best part of Reddit. So growth isn’t all bad.

https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html

I know we all dream of having all our friends and family on the Fediverse so we can avoid proprietary networks completely. But the Fediverse is not looking for market dominance or profit. The Fediverse is not looking for growth. It is offering a place for freedom. People joining the Fediverse are those looking for freedom. If people are not ready or are not looking for freedom, that’s fine. They have the right to stay on proprietary platforms. We should not force them into the Fediverse. We should not try to include as many people as we can at all cost. We should be honest and ensure people join the Fediverse because they share some of the values behind it.

https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html