So let me start off by saying that I recognize that there was initially a genuine problem with people who didn't want NSFW content being exposed to it.
Some of this was due to the fact that not all content was being correctly flagged as NSFW, and some of it was because a lot of users didn't realize that individual users can choose to completely block an entire instance - which is not only a very easy and fast solution, but also does not require an all-or-nothing approach of defederating from NSFW instances.
A number of changes were made, but some of those lingering changes have meant that people who do want to see NSFW content are not because:
-
Even having subscribed to several NSFW subs, they are effectively completely missing from my feed.
-
Most NSFW thumbnails are blurred.
Both of these behaviors should not be occurring if a user has chosen in their settings to NOT hide NSFW content.
However, I will also say that the blurred state is something that deserves its own user setting (i.e. so that a user can choose to NOT hide NSFW, but still want them blurred or not) - preferably with the granularity to set it for various sub-types of NSFW (e.g. porn, gore, etc...).
I don't think it went too far. Not exposing people accidentally to NSFW content takes priority over giving people a better experience consuming NSFW content. If you want to consume NSFW content head over to an instance that focuses on NSFW content. For example, lemmynsfw.com will fulfill all your NSFW needs.
That's the advantage of the fediverse, you can have different instances focusing on different types of content. And having the main sites of kbin.social or lemmy.world focus on Non-NSFW content will make the entire fediverse easier to advertise to the public.
I really don't understand why they don't just join a NSFW instance and be done with it. That's exactly the point of an instance: focusing on meta interests. On top of that those instances are already up and running. It's not as if they had to do it from scratch.
Why would you inflict this on people who don't want it? There is an adoption risk, there is a legal risk...It's not worth it! Why would we take the risk of being defederated by big federations or big names just so a bunch of you can spread more NSFW?
There is a toggle dedicated for it, which means it's a point of contention. Go to a safe space, to an instance where there is no contention. Use the fediverse.
You should become accustomed to having multiple accounts, ones for different instances, because this is the fediverse and essentially just semi-interlinked forums. If you want forum specific content that is generally considered spicy, go to that forum directly rather than complain that every other forum not handle your need for spicy content in an effective way for all parties.
This isnt some faceless megacorp. You are so used to one source for all your content due to reddit, but you should not expect one instance to provide you with all your desired content. Can you imagine how many man hours need to be put into effectively handling spicy content, across all instances? Or, you can just go to the spicy content forums.
Yes, there is a need for better handling multiple accounts seamlessly, its definitely under development in several apps. In the meantime it's just something to deal with.
More comments please, still have popcorn left 🍿