the Fediverse may be missing a clear, cohesive narrative.

I think this is because it’s not a clear, cohesive place. Developers keep trying to make it look like centralized social media, but I don’t think that’s going to work in the end; it certainly isn’t working now.

So true. It's impressive and laugh-inducing to me how complainers seem to demand from the Fediverse something that you can't even get from GRR Martin. And to be intellectually honest, you are not getting it from Facebook Twitter etc because the "narrative" there is a fabrication a fiction. There's no real thing that has to be coherent there other than branding and fascism.