Compared with previous versions of fediverse server software, Mastodon has been wildly successful as an open source project. It's not only maintained a solid re

Compared with previous versions of fediverse server software, Mastodon has been wildly successful as an open source project. It's not only maintained a solid release cycle, but it's shipped native clients and has slowly but surely built out an interest in the federated social web. Mattl, you can chime in and tell us what things were like back in the Gnu Social days or maybe someone else remembers the StatusNet/Identi.ca era further back. How many installations did you have, roughly? It wasn't a very active scene. Seems like Eugen Rochko and Mastodon gGmbH know what they're doing. Yes it's not 'early days' but we can also argue the whole system (based on ActivityPub, including software like Pixelfed, Peertube, Misskey, etc) is a genie unable to be returned inside its bottle. It doesn't really matter if Mastodon gets mass adoption or not, as long as it follows the same path taken by email, DNS, or other internet standards it'll do okay in the end (Lindy Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect - these old and crusty standards have proven the test of time and are not going anywhere soon. Twitter could collapse tomorrow depending on what Elon decides to do with it.)