https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse
Plain English explanation though outdated, hence the future tense; https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/03/introduction-distributed-social-network
Excerpts:
But federated social network developers are doing two things differently in order to build a new ecosystem. First, the leading federated social networking software is open-source: that means that anybody can download the source code, and use it to create and maintain social networking profiles for themselves and others. Second, the developers are simultaneously collaborating on a new common language, seeking an environment where most or even all federated social networking profiles can talk to one another.
To join a federated social network, you'll be able to choose from an array of "profile providers," just like you can choose an email provider. You will even be able to set up your own server and provide your social networking profile yourself. And in a federated social network, any profile can talk to another profile — even if it's on a different server.
Imagine the Web as an open sea. To use Facebook, you have to immigrate to Facebook Island and get a Facebook House, in a land with a single ruler. But the distributed social networks being developed now will allow you to choose from many islands, connected to one another by bridges, and you can even have the option of building your own island and your own bridges.
Friendica, Diaspora, Mastadon are three such pieces of software and they are compatible with each other to some degree. Friendica for instance is compatible with; Friendica, Diaspora, GNU-Social, Mastodon, email, RSS feeds via native protocol support.
So if there were 100,000 members running on 100 installations, how would big tech know who's who? That would also mean there could be 1,000 members on each of the 100 installations. Less concern about needing a room full of server racks or relying on amazon's AWS. This software won't run on your $5/mth shared hosting however but mostly because they all require root access to install via command line. There is hosting that will give you root access that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Maybe $20/mth which would be fine for 1,000 users or maybe more. Pretty affordable imho. Most are written in php which all web hosts have.
I see this as the way of the future for social networking, especially these days. Since it requires typing commands into a terminal, conservatives would need to "Learn to Code". Not really though. You can copy and paste. One would need to know how to obtain and use a hosting account, eg; cpanel. I know many of the young conservatives like on thedonald.win know this stuff. I build websites so I know it. I joined a Friendica server years ago but it was all techies and therefor leftists/liberals at the time. There's around 200 servers running GNU-Social and and 200 Friendica and 3,900 for Mastodon but Mastodon is microblogging a la twitter.
Visual
THIS
NOT THIS
Pretty good representation in that second pic with all roads leading to Silicon Valley. Also makes one think of the United Stated compared to communism or a monarchy which has a single State. Speaking of monarchy, even though we have alternative social networks like gab, parler, mewe etc, it's still one entity running the show and now we have a larger entity shutting down parler so maybe it's more like feudalism in a sense. This Distributed Social Networking gives control back to the people. I don't know Andrew Torba other than he runs gab. He could end up not being a good guy and get busted for something and have everything taken away, including gab. He could have health or family issues and just give up on gab. Then all the members are SOL. Same with Parler or anyone else that's not a huge, publicly traded org with a board of directors and/or investors.