FediDB respecting robots.txt has resulted in appr. 2M Fediverse accounts no longer being counted.

Prior to this change, #FediDB counted 12,923,233 accounts. Now it counts 10,868,233 accounts.

Now let me be blunt: respecting robots.txt is a good thing. But now when we look at #Fediverse accounts, it must clearly be seen with the acknowledgement that these only count services that haven't opted out of tracking.

So when people compare user counts of #Bluesky vs. the Fediverse, remember that Bluesky has the luxury of a more complete count because they host all accounts there. In contrast, the Fediverse is actually decentralized, and a good many services simply do not want to be tracked -- and are therefore not counted.

https://fedidb.org/

@fediversenews@piefed.social