A social network being accessible only by a specific niche will severely limit its growth and reach. If that's all the network wants then that's fine but that's

A social network being accessible only by a specific niche will severely limit its growth and reach. If that's all the network wants then that's fine but that's by far NOT how I've seen mastodon marketed. Regardless, even being accessible by only people who know what's going on still doesn't guarantee success. There is still significant friction there. I know HN decentralized everything is pretty popular but when it comes to UX I've never seen it test well because I haven't seen a good enough UX to just about any decentralization of a normally centralized service that also lowers friction of use.