I’ve been using fediverse stuff (Mastodon and, most recently, Calckey—I’m just going to use “Mastodon” as shorthand here; purists can bite me) for over a year now and have been doing so full time for about six months, following Elon Musk buying Twitter (since on principle, I decline to give Elon Musk money or attention). This latter part coincided with the “November 2022 influx,” when lots of new people joined Mastodon for similar reasons. A lot of that influx has not stuck around. Everyone is very aware at this point that active user numbers of Mastodon have dropped off a cliff…
I genuinely would like to know: what is the appeal of microblogging, such as Twitter and Mastodon? How does one get the most out of it?
I think generally speaking, you can make the distinction between something like lemmy/reddit and something like mastodon/twitter as putting interest/community first or putting the individual first.
Lemmy/Reddit is great if you want to follow a specific topic and don’t necessarily care about what the individual users think. I don’t know about you, but I barely ever read or acknowledge someone’s username on those platforms.
Mastodon/Twitter is great if you want to follow specific people for their opinions. Like seeing what certain politicians or analysts have to say about developments in Ukraine. Things that might be interesting but not quite newsworthy, or putting news into a different context.
For any given interest you have, there are probably some voices who you care about hearing from more than others, be it just because you know them personally or because they are experts in their respective fields. Microblogging platforms are built to support that individual-first approach.