Doesn't matter how open 'the fediverse' is or not to a point of view if the admin of your server are happy to have it, it will exist here. Especially when we're talking raw numbers like this, they should all be piling into the same bucket, if we're measuring fediverse. But as I say this I wonder what the definitions they're using are.

For instance very different views are expressed on Truth Social, which I'm led to believe could connect to the fediverse, but choose not to. So I wonder if those numbers are included, i expect not because they'd not be connected as a fediverse participant by my understanding.

The point is, other people don't have to put up with it in their corners of the fediverse if they don't. This is the freedom of choice benefit that a network like the fediverse has over a centralised platform like fb, reddit, or even BlueSky. This is a fundamental difference in levels of control that makes the fediverse such an exciting project.

Its not necessarily the case that each individual user has full control of these settings, although they mostly do, and if they set up and maintain their own instance they absolutely will. But it is the case that a user has greater control to a point where its practically individualised, and if there were a case where some greater disconnection is warranted the admins aren't some amorphous presence that travel between dimensions unseen, they have a presence in their servers and have a level of accessibility thats unheard of in previous forms of social media. Theres also a community of admins, who can learn and build off each other, which is beneficial in a cooperative-competition kind of way.

Anyway, you probably already knew all this. I ended up finding typing this out was a fun exercise to appreciate for a moment what this network is actually delivering to a couple million people.