Doesn't it feel completely different to participate in a local community vs a federated community? Its so interesting how that works even if everyone can see everything everywhere.
To get serious about distribution, I think there needs to be a few features implemented;
User migration. Allow people who find themselves on an overstuffed server to migrate to a different instance
Community grouping / merging. If there are multiple communities for the exact same thing, allow the mods to group them or merge them to not fracture the user base
User data import / export or cloud backup to a personal provider. If one day your server instance just disappears, it would be nice to know I have a backup of my user data, subscribed communities, saved posts and comments, and maybe a way to relink to my old posts and comments across the fediverse.
Just a few ideas I was thinking about that could possibly help users move around.
The client requested carrots but after delivery tells you they actually meant zucchini. You think it is strange to put zucchinis in a salad but still meticulously go through their dish and replace all carrots with zucchinis. Upon delivery they ask why it tastes weird and you realize they meant cucumber not zucchini and they got the two confused.
Hackers and Grosse Pointe Blank. Watched it almost every night to go to bed for years on VHS.