1. My UI research showed that people were not bringing their personal connections to Mastodon because of the lack of private messaging. At SWF, we prioritized this as an important issue for growth. See https://evanp.me/2023/05/15/re-designing-the-mastodon-user-interface-for-better-personal-relationships/

2. @tomcoates and I proposed it as a project for Summer of Protocols. We spent a few months really digging deeply on the topic.