Decentralizing social media can sound like a sort of kumbaya anti-capitalist manifesto: “It’s about openness and sharing, not capitalism, *man*!” In practice it’s the opposite: it’s a truly free market approach to social networking. Mastodon may not be interested in becoming a trillion-dollar company, but there’s no reason there can’t be plenty of those built on the fediverse. It’s just that in a fediverse-dominated world, the way to win is not to achieve excellent lock-in and network effects. The only way to win is to build the best product.

Source: 2023 in Social Media: The Case for the Fediverse – David Pierce and editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.