Back when meta was pushing threads a lot of lemmy was suggesting blue sky as the “safe” alternative. I thought it wasn’t corporate at that point, though I never looked into it. At the time I thought federating was proof a site was one of the “good guys.” Lots of us here aren’t really techie, and we’re just bumbling along picking stuff up over time, with none of this as a priority, just trying to take baby steps towards a safer, more private net experience.