If its possible to create your own instance and federate with any instance of your choice - are there any apps which include the ability to register your own instance with you as the sole user? Maybe I’m misunderstanding the underlying logic

I agree with this. There’s some problems that need to be addressed. Hopefully sooner rather than later

I had a brief read through the article you linked. I’m frankly shocked at how relevant it is. I never considered how widespread the problem is in reality. It goes so much further than just reddit. An extremely interesting article for anybody curious, I’ll be dedicating more time to reading it in its entirety this weekend.

Thanks very much for linking it!

That’s interesting - can I ask where you’re seeing those stats?

It’s something I thought about. But as you said the exposure to search engines is key.