@micahflee awesome text and reporting, thanks for sharing. I just have a suggestion: the press/journalists should stop referring to Mastodon as a "rival, competitor" to #birdsite. Mastodon is an open descentralized network based on free open source software, it's not competing with nor rivaling anything, quite the opposite, considering how the Fediverse works and its core philosophies. it can be referred to as an alternative to birdsite, at most.