The proof is that mastodon user base is steadily going up. There hasn’t been a giant spike in a while but the barrier to monetization is too high for it to shed users from that. Its more like how wikipedia has outlived google as a resource despite wikipedia not being particularly better now than soon after it started.
The consumer lockin then monetization lockdown cycle always sheds users. I think eventually most federated systems will gain users, albeit slowly.
This only works if a new centralized network doesnt take its place, Blueskys existence kinda proves thats not always the case
The proof is that mastodon user base is steadily going up. There hasn’t been a giant spike in a while but the barrier to monetization is too high for it to shed users from that. Its more like how wikipedia has outlived google as a resource despite wikipedia not being particularly better now than soon after it started.