Sean, this article is really reaching.

• “#10 Mastodon doesn’t have algorithms” this is pedantry. Of course chronological sorting is technically an algorithm, but we don’t mean basic sorting when we say algorithm. When people refer to social algorithms they mean sorting based on algorithms that change the order from the chronological order based on any number of factors such as a post’s virality, who posted it, its topic, if someone’s paid for it to be boosted, and so on. So no, Mastodon’s main feeds do not have algorithms in the colloquial usage of the word.
• “Myth #6: Mastodon respects your privacy, and is ideal for secure communication” woah hold up, privacy and security are two very different things. Mastodon does respect my privacy in some ways far more than other social sites, in that my data and actions are not being tracked and monetised, but yes it’s not secure.
• “Myth #5: If you’re on a bad server, you can easily move to a good one” strongly agree with this one, but it also misses a major reason that this is a myth: you can’t migrate your post history.
• “Myth #4: Mastodon Federation basically works like email.” jesus, this is massive pedantry. Of course it doesn’t work the same on a technical level. All the email metaphor is for is telling people that you’re on one provider but you can talk to everybody on all other providers. The metaphor ends there. And “the metaphor is closer to Usenet groups than it is to the kind of email communication most people are familiar with”? Please don’t use Usenet as an example unless your audience is 40+ and techy. Barely anybody knows what that is.
• “Myth #3: Mastodon is so much nicer than other places! The problem is a confusion of cause and effect.” What? No. The cause is people, on average, in comparison to other major social sites, genuinely being nicer. There are plenty of other places on the internet just as nice as Mastodon, but Mastodon is far nicer in comparison to the other major social networks. People are generally comparing to Twitter when they make that comparison, and that comparison is 100% true.
• “Myth #1: Mastodon is Easy to Use!” lol this is not a myth, at all. I don’t think anybody using Mastodon is unaware of its UX and UI flaws.

I personally couldn’t give a crap about those kind of things, I definitely wouldn’t pay for it. Mona looks great and is already customisable enough for my liking. Some other apps have even more visual customisation.

If I wanted a custom theme in my web browser I’d run custom CSS, like how Bird UI works. Or just use a service like elk.zone and I wouldn’t have to faff around with custom themes/code/plugins.

But sure, I don’t see why you couldn’t do this. It’d be best done via plug-ins for Mastodon, not per-instance. Then people can off plug-ins in some kind of marketplace. You pay for the plug-in, it installs into Mastodon, and you can manage your current plugins from your Mastodon preferences.

Yeah, why not. If someone wants to build it then there’s no harm in it existing.

If I understand it correctly, I can join any server

Correct, you can join any server (if they are accepting new members).

but then I can search or follow users and hashtags across all of Mastodon?

Correct.

Does the server determine what posts/news I see without searching?

Your home feed will have the same boosts and posts no matter what server you’re on. You will, however, not see all posts from followed hashtags but rather only the hashtagged posts your server knows about.

So long story short, if you’re new you should probably join a big server because it helps discover more content. Once you’re settle you can move servers if you wish, to a community that’s more specific to your interests.

You’re browsing on the web, on desktop? It should have arrows you can click, and work with keyboard arrows. My server is running standard, latest version Mastodon and it has those.

https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/posting/#privacy this help at all for learning where toots go?