Ohh, absolutely, or rather, it is the past. I mean, internet was built that way,

Exactly! I miss those days, where search engines mostly returned small websites with useful info.

can I pull my data out of it/relocate to another provider on a whim?

This is actually kinda tricky with ActivityPub-based services like Lemmy and Mastodon. Sure, you can move provider, but you lose your original username since usernames are tightly coupled to the instance you're using.

BlueSky's approach is better. Currently they're the only provider using their protocol, but they have plans to decentralize. You can use your own domain as your username, regardless of which provider you use. If you move provider, your username can move with you, you just need to update some DNS records to point to the new provider.

Ohh, absolutely, or rather, it is the past. I mean, internet was built that way,