I find instance growth rate more exciting than the user growth rate--like measuring biodiversity rather than raw population as an indicator of the health of an ecosystem. It means long term resilience.
@krypteia Yes, I think you are right. But I worry about the longevity of small instances, costs and maintenance and especially doing it for the long long term is questionable. No one doubts Facebook/Twitter will be around forever.
I kind of think network resilience is increased, even if instance longevity decreases.
But you're right. It remains to be seen how people deal with instance deaths, whether they get discouraged and leave or the network adapts easier mechanisms for migration and it just becomes an accepted fact of federated life.