I think people came to Mastodon expecting a new Twitter. Mastodon doesn’t try to hook you with algorithms the same way Twitter does, so you don’t get the same dopamine cycle.

I think it’s great, all the people I want to follow are on there and I don’t get random tweets that “may interest me” and “people I should follow” every time I scroll. It sucks as a platform to meet (and get enraged by) strangers on the internet. The lack of an algorithm and reliable view statistics also makes attempts at gaining any kind of influencer status pointless, and no company will bribe you with free stuff when they can’t see how many people you’ve surreptitiously advertised their product to.