@discordiankitty@mastodon.me.uk I think that will depend a lot on exactly *how* it grows. There have been many new folks suggesting to basically implement Twitter algorithms, full-text search, more large centralized instances, and so on - if that happens, then yes, moderation will break down, because those are precisely the things that make Twitter a hotbed of abuse (https://scott.mn/2022/10/29/twitter_features_mastodon_is_better_without/ is a good read).

But if the fundamental structure of the network remains the same, and just the amount of instances and people increases, then I think it would hold up fine. The "you only see a part of the network from any given vantage point" property is a very powerful defense here against scalability-related moderation issues.

That having been said, it also depends on how individual instances deal with the influx of new users. I've certainly seen a lot of instances struggle with conveying the culture to such large amounts of newcomers at once, especially around things like CWs and image alt texts. That is also a potential failure point, even if only temporarily.