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@inthehands @futurebird @graymiller Except that Bluesky right now is exploding on a scale that Mastodon isn't, which is the opposite of the situation with solar and fuel cells.

Unfortunately Mastodon is something like the Linux of social-media networks. It's special in a way that may make it more robust than the commercial systems over the long term, and it makes it adaptable to all sorts of special purposes; but from a user perspective, it's a distinction on the basis of an ideology of technology that we probably can't make most people care about.

I suspect we're going to end up in the position of the people who keep wondering why Linux never took off on the desktop--it's so much better! Other operating systems make you dumb! If you can't jump through the simple hoops to use it, you shouldn't be allowed to use a computer! etc. etc.

(and we even have the equivalent of the people arguing "why aren't you calling it GNU/Linux" and arguing about the distinction of "open source" vs. "free software" etc. etc.)