@unchartedworlds My understanding is that on the street people mostly interact out of necessity, and because of this it is considered rude (or even illegal) to e.g. intercept one's conversation, follow them etc.
In my view the web and esp. social media[1] (like microblogging platforms of Fedi) were created with the explicit intention for people to be listened to, followed, commented on etc. (I'm sure you can come up with analogies, but I won't mention any to avoid misdirecting the conversation.)
Technology allows us to create more private/safe infrastructure than a street (encryption, access controls etc). Social media generally aims at the opposite direction (Fedi provides public plain text APIs for everyone to use).
[1] I use this word in the sense where people curate/produce information for each other, like on (micro)blogging platforms. The "let's keep in touch with my aunt" use-case is less relevant when talking about public content.