And yeah I don't think it should be complicated why Cohost has no DM system... it's a huge moderation burden, hell it's an extra regulatory burden, I think, especially if you did it in a reasonably secure way (as, I think, users would expect) where your DMs aren't just plaintext visible to the site's admins. Cohost is made by like four people. C'mon do the math.
i stand by my comments, repeatedly, for years that the piece that's missing (and has been choked out by platform lockin getting so bad) is actual internet era address books / contact lists, and this is why those platforms dying at the rate they are is even more of a problem than it seems
