@Satsuma Of course – that’s a large part of why a lot of us are here on Mastodon, after all.
But there’s some manipulation inherent in any structured interaction.
The fact that we can boost, favorite or reply, but not quote, is a deliberate choice on Gargron’s part.
The character limits, the number of images, visibility of CWs, the size of the edit box, column width, all of these things influence how people use the app.
@Satsuma I remember @anildash mentioning changing the size of the text box on (presumably) Movable Type & finding that people would write longer or shorter posts based on that, even though the length limit itself hadn’t changed. The UI influenced people’s choices.