Really good article. I agree with most of your points. I am one of the few apparently that actually believes in not supporting fascist billionaires. Not sure what all those other “resisters” are doing on that site still. Drives me crazy.

Just wanted to note that the mastodon app now defaults to mastodon.social so people don’t have to pick a server. Picking a server was/is absolutely a barrier to entry, I don’t care how many people on Mastodon say it isn’t. So that will help going forward. They are also working on quote posts and search functionality. Hopefully these things are in place for the next potential wave when Meta/Instagram spin up their alternative. I think Tumblr is also planning on forking to the Fediverse so that will help. I don’t think it’s totally lost that Mastodon can overtake Twitter but agree they screwed up their big chance in November 2022 by being too insular for too long.

You didn’t call it out explicitly but I also wanted to mention that CW nonsense. That shit is whack but has really died down with more people joining. No one gives a shit about that crap.