Just want to reiterate that the IRS get their marching orders from the party in charge which is why they targeted rich people under Biden: The IRS has recovered $1.3 billion from rich American tax dodgers since the fall of 2023 — relieving a painful burden from ‘ordinary citizens’

My personal opinion is that it was:

• Easier signup
• A wider variety of opinions… Fediverse imo is known for tankies and progressives. I’m a progressive so I’m OK w/ the latter, but it can be an echo chamber at times.
• Built-in audiences (Threads especially but also Jack founding a spinoff helps)
• Similar to Linux, one of the benefits to open-source is plenty of forks and standards. This leads to a more fractured landscape at times and so it’s rockier than the alternatives

Regardless of how you feel about subscriptions, it’s a step in making the fediverse a more viable option for that that create content for a living.