People thinking Mastodon is a website, because Twitter was a website is a problem.
Mastodon is no more a website than IRC is a chatroom. Centralised platforms have got folks out of certain habits - to wit, the internet is *run* by protocols.
Having a crap time? Block, mute, seek out an instance that meets your needs and desires. IRC still exists. Email still exists. They've outlasted individual sites *because* they are protocols, of a sort.