I think it has become more than apparent that our federation with Hexbear has degraded the quality of browsing on this instance. I’m generally for open federation, but the amount of brigading and general toxicity is not conducive to the friendly communications that make Lemmy great.
Maybe we shouldn’t defederate because a user has an app preference and a feature preference that don’t match up?
If an app doesn’t have a feature you like, try an app that has a feature you like. There’s lots to choose from. In fact, there’s the web interface itself, and the ability to write your own scripts, too.