I don't think mastodon has a great chance of gaining network effects so long as most of its content is just being mirrored from folks' tweets. Makes it seem like a waste of time for me to scroll through content I've already seen.
@lopp you're missing a huge chunk of fedi, it'll take some time for you to find where people hang out
@lopp check out freespeechextremists, shitposter.club, noagendasocial
@lopp I guess it depends on your social graph, and the instance you're on.
My instance's local timeline, Bitcoinhackers.org is almost only all twitter copy. It sucks. Bad.
But my home timeline is interesting, diverse and nearly only fediverse exclusive content. Took me a while to curate and build, but it's there.
@lopp When you run your own server, it's an extra challenge to find people. I joined several servers and browsed the local timeline following over time.
I think of it like moving to a new land. Make friends with those who are established there and then help old friends have an easier time of it.
@lopp new users definitely come in waves, I've seen a significant influx of users from Italy and especially political activists.