From Chicago. I made the plunge to Mastodon (and here) after the Reddit shenanigans and just seeing the repeated bad-faith policies by Twitter. I have been using redirector and libredirect for the last month or two to actively decide who I give my data to just as a fun experiment into best practices.
I think it's slowly starting to be clear that this type of setup will be the way forward for the more tech-savvy, privacy-focused users, and hopefully/eventually it hits the mainstream as well, but otherwise, it's just self-selecting into the type of people I want to be around, which will probably be better for my mental health anyways.
I'm into cycling, trading, sci-fi and FOSS. Currently reading The Expanse and taking a sabbatical year from work
Edit: Just want to encourage people to engage w/ and create content over the next few weeks. Activity and friendly faces are probably the most determining factor in whether someone becomes an active user or just browses for a few minutes
It's a great read but a lot to books! Enjoy!