Bigger ad-based social media NEEDS to be big. Their investors need to see growth, so they're always investing in new features to expand their user base or grow

Bigger ad-based social media NEEDS to be big. Their investors need to see growth, so they're always investing in new features to expand their user base or grow into new businesses. If it starts shrinking, it collapses. The fediverse can simply be. Growth isn't required for survival. Operating a mastodon instance can be quite cheap because all you have to pay for is hardware costs & power, etc. No salaries, no R&D investments. Only build features that users want, there's no hidden incentives. They're difficult to compare