Y'all didn't email me that signups were going to be public.
Y'all didn't email me when signups actually went public. I found out about it here.
...And, let's see.. Yep, my handle is taken.
Something like 1 million of the users that joined came from the waitlist.
Most users on HN are probably able to navigate using a domain handle, which is really the recommended and most decentralized option.
https://bsky.social/about/blog/4-28-2023-domain-handle-tutor...
I hope Bluesky prospers since it has some features that Mastodon and Twitter lacks, but it has a lot of catching up to do.
https://joinmastodon.org/servers
At least you're not succumbing to a commercial interest who will inevitably enshittify for eventual profit extraction.
On the other hand, the benefit of decentralized services is that your handle being taken shouldn't (eventually) matter, because you can just find another server.