When a traditional social media site shuts down (G+, app.net) your entire social graph is scattered to the wind - to other proprietary systems that don't interoperate. When a Mastodon server shuts down, you just import your follows list into a new account.
Laughing. Once again. When a (streams) or zap or hubzilla or mistpark or roadhouse server shuts down, you just shrug your shoulders and click the bookmark for one of your clones. You don't lose your profile, your setting and preferences, calendars, photos, videos and personal storage - or your
content (like your posts and conversations going back several years).
Oh yeah, **or** your friends.
And you certainly don't lose any sleep worrying about your site shutting down at random times or becoming inaccessible for a few hours because the damn cert expired or simply waking up and finding out it''s gone.
Cheers.