One more hot take and hopefully done metaposting for rest of fridey
Pleroma doesn't need you to defend it. People willing to demonize users of a software for only their choice of using it arent worth befriending in the first place.
It continues to exist and gain popularity because it is useful and well made. Free Software is inherently a meritocracy. People defend Mastodon and argue its AP-spec-breaking block strategy should be the norm because they feel like they have to justify themselves.
Mastodon project's aversion to the users desires is the whole reason glitchsoc exists. Misskey is bloated too but it gives fun features back to the users. When you ignore glitchsoc, vanilla Masto just feels behind the times. For some people thats fine, stability is good, and they are happy to use it, but so often we see full on stans that are ready to cancel everybody using something different for reasons they dont understand.
Bleromer, Misskey, Honk, etc are fine and require no justification. Can't you tell?