Mastodon ain’t it because the exact minute a minimum wage Geek Squad tech has to explain to a sorority group the reason they can’t follow each other is because they are using different federated instances is the exact minute mastodon fails to gain any mainstream appeal. It will likely always captivate some niche of users looking for a slice of the nostalgic, techie internet (Mastodon will remain an HN darling no doubt), but a Twitter drop in, it is not.