I was on four different fediverse instances before finally joining Nostr, lol. The numbers game on the fedi side is a consequence of how Mostr "usernames" work on non-Soapbox/Rebased instances; the former truncates it to just eight characters because Alex at least has the good sense to make HIS shit work properly.

Because they're MY numbers. How can you stand to let your admin keep the keys to your chastity cage?