Mastodon: @canpolat@hachyderm.io
I don’t follow it very closely, but as far as I know, they are the only one implementing the open protocol they designed (which doesn’t interoperate with ActivityPub). However, there seems to be some efforts for creating a bridge: https://www.docs.bsky.app/blog/feature-bridgyfed
As you said, there are some recognizable faces and that may impact the adoption. But not being compatible with ActivityPub is a real bummer.
If I was to create a blog today, I would use a static page generator and host it on GitHub or GitLab. I would spend my time on creating original content instead of tweaking the infrastructure.
Here is the link to the original website (an NGO that monitors blocked websites in Turkey): https://ifade.org.tr/engelliweb/distrowatch-erisime-engelledi/
And here is the Google translation of the text on that page: