Agreed, that would have been a much better title. There's a lot of negativity around Mastodon -- the Twitter migration in 2022 is often described as a "failure". It certainly wasn't a success, but I see it much more as a missed opportunity.

Network effects are certainly a big deal but every social network has to deal with the issue, and some succeed. Addressing some of the reasons for bouncing not only improves retention, but makes it more likely that people recommend it to their friends. So many of the problems from July 2023's Mastodon Is Easy and Fun Except When It Isn’t were problems back in 2017 as well ... how much progress has Mastodon made? Fortunately other fediverse software's making more progress, but it's still frustrating.