Honestly, I would prefer to use # over the "15 columns" Fediverse server, but whenever I log into my D* account, almost all my contacts have been silent for years and my stream is full of posts from newsbots squatting on the tags I've subscribed to. Whenever there is a real post, it is usually some political thing, rather than something I actually want to see.

(No, simple mode does not fix most of the irritations of the multi-column interface. Though now that I've seen #'s multi-column UI, I can see why people use it.)

Also, what bozo decided years later that Diaspora (at least the JD instance) should start sending notifications and e-mails about people's birthdays? I believe that most of the people that joined early on joined specifically because they did not want their personal information dispersed unnecessarily. IMO, this is a violation of their trust. (Maybe this should be *opt-in* ... if you want your contacts to be notified of your important days such as birthdays and holidays, click a box to enable it.)