I’ve set up an XMPP server a few years ago. It worked beautifully!

That would truly be horrendous. I happen to like what I do and hate wasting time on trivial shit like this.

I guess it’s not even the watching - I really don’t care about it. It would be nice to have fewer distractions from people walking by, chatting nearby, chatting to me, etc.

I wish I had a cubicle and not the open office.

I guess if it only affected the UI component and did not initiate the actual federation - maybe it could work.

Usability-wise - absolutely agreed. I do wonder if it’s possible to implement it on a technical level in a way that does not cripple smaller instances.