There are lots of people on there I would like to follow, but they wont be joining the fediverse and I don't want to make a Threads account myself either.

Me. Are there any small instances that won't defed?

Lots of illustrators and writers have Threads and Instagram because it's where the money is. They rely on that kind of exposure to sell and show their work. Following from Mastodon without a Threads account would be awesome.

Not to mention that many Mastodon users are ridiculously "purists" saying that no ad or sell should be on the network, ever, and are actively hostile to the small guys trying to make a living here. I agreed that big corps can fuck off because they overdo ads, but the small guy selling his weird contraptions or custom phone cases should see Mastodon as an alternative. But the truth is that they won't.

If it helps kill twitter?