Why Post.News over Mastodon and CounterSocial? I'm on all three--for the moment--but one thing that sticks out is the fact that Post has venture capital behind it, while the others don't.

What this means in practice is that Mastodon and CounterSocial will always be what they are now, but Post has a chance to really take off. Will it? That is the big question.

If I were in charge of CounterSocial, I would be looking for funding, BTW. The user-donor/subscription model just doesn't seem a winner to me.

If the NYT and other outlets can't make it at scale with model where users pay--and scale is the big issue--then social media sites won't succeed either. Which brings me to my point: With CounterSocial, what you see now is what it will always be without proper funding. If you are happy with that, then good for you.

Historically, models where the users pay have never worked in media. Newspapers and magazines always made the lion's share of their profits from ads, as did TV. User funded TV like the BBC has always lost money.

What about media companies like HBO and Netflix? They are able to survive on user fees. However, they can do so only when they are able to offer premium, high-demand content that cannot be found anywhere else. That's why Netflix is now in trouble.