In Mastodon you need to mention the person you reply to or they won’t get mentioned. Clients usually set them automatically.

Last time I used Friendica I really disliked the UI but it keeps popping up lately, maybe there have been some improvements

Why not? It needs some moderation but it’s better than any general disquss-like solution imho.

What’s spots? Sports or something else?

There’s a German Lemmy as well https://feddit.org/

It’s not about fascists on the platform but living in a fascist country where posting on a left leaning platform is already suspicious.

Yes, discovering is easier on bigger instances. That’s why some smaller instances subscribe to relays, where the “magazine” gets copied to every other instance on that relay.

As soon as you follow accounts, you’ll get every magazine in chronological order though.