The beauty of federation is that it provides an opt-out. Take a look at Mastodon, for example (FWIW, I am not a user): yes, at the time the article was written the
vast majority of folks were on three instances (I am curious what it is like today), but if anyone disagreed with the policies or performance of those instances, he would be free to move to another instance, or set up his own. By contrast, there is no other Twitter which Twitter federates with.
Likewise, a Gmail user is free to move to another email provider (there are large ones, unlikely to have deliverability issues), or run his own (a tricky enterprise, to be sure).
FWIW, I am concerned that democratic rule has its own failure modes, which need to be addressed when designing a system. Do 50.000001% of users really get to permaban another user? Are there any actions which require a higher threshold, or multiple votes over time, or which are permanently forbidden? The U.S. Constitution has the advantage of a Bill of Rights, whose status has so far prevented the outright abrogation of any of them, even if some of them have come under quite a bit of pressure (the First, the Second, the Ninth & Tenth leap immediately to my mind).
Just saying, 'the will of the majority controls' is a recipe for mob rule — which is exactly what 'democracy' means.
Likewise, a Gmail user is free to move to another email provider (there are large ones, unlikely to have deliverability issues), or run his own (a tricky enterprise, to be sure).
FWIW, I am concerned that democratic rule has its own failure modes, which need to be addressed when designing a system. Do 50.000001% of users really get to permaban another user? Are there any actions which require a higher threshold, or multiple votes over time, or which are permanently forbidden? The U.S. Constitution has the advantage of a Bill of Rights, whose status has so far prevented the outright abrogation of any of them, even if some of them have come under quite a bit of pressure (the First, the Second, the Ninth & Tenth leap immediately to my mind).
Just saying, 'the will of the majority controls' is a recipe for mob rule — which is exactly what 'democracy' means.