I see a lot of comments pointing out bugs and saying something along the lines like “they need to fix this ASAP, otherwise… something something”.
As a software developer myself (not in the fediverse), I can tell you one thing:
Keep in mind that all of this literally escalated pretty quickly, and no one was prepared for that. What started out as a hobby project of some enthausiasts, quickly turned into a high demand over the course of a few days.
Having hundreds of enthusiasts use a software is different than having thousends of “average” people using it. 100 users won’t detect many bugs, and if they do, they’re more tolerant since they know it’s all volunteering. But thousands of users will detect even more bugs that no one bothered to deal before.
Once the userbase grows and the demands are clear enough, this should be tackled, eventually.
So yeah, hang in there.
The moral of the story is to support projects that you might want to use in the future even if they are not finished yet before you need them. Mastodon and Lemmy have been around for years. When the mainstream alternative suddenly becomes lame, it isn’t an emergency on the devs part.
You can apply this to most alternatives. Support GIMP, Krita, and Inkscape if you are an artist using Adobe products. Support mixxx, audacity, and lmms if you are a DJ. Support LibreOffice if you use Microsoft Office.
I agree on most of your examples, except GIMP… no… just no! Sorry, the software is acceptable at best, and the devs are resistant to UI/UX improvements/suggestions… so again… nope