Welcome! I’m a new amateur in the States. Like you, I peek in here and find that at the moment, it doesn’t take long. The frog boil has worked quite well in Reddit; the frogs are staying in their pots even as enshittification becomes obvious (pro tip, it’s spelled IPO). Unlike you, I’m new enough that I have nothing worthwhile to contribute yet.
As for Mastodon, I’m on an instance with a 5k character limit. Some instances run modified versions known as glitch or hometown, which allow the admin to set a limit (well) above 500. I didn’t find a handy list of these easily, but a little searching in google or r/Mastodon may turn up ideas.
vk6flab