A lot of coffee/donut/pastry shops offer “service discounts” to cops, firefighters, and paramedics. It really took off after 9/11.

I’d say it’s been a bit mixed. The software is at times a bit wonky and unpredictable. Some features are surprisingly missing (like, as an admin, just listing out users on the instance). I’ve had a few bugs from the client and I’m not always able to pull in content.

Having said that, I see a lot of promising stuff going on. My friends and I set up an instance and while it’s tiny, we’re sharing links we like and commenting on them, just like the old days of the internet. We’ll be around, I think.