Another big obstacle is the general UX of these platforms. Major companies have teams of user experience analysis and researchers that, while not always “winning” as compared to product or business driven decisions, absolutely have a (generally positive) impact on the product. Onboarding, retention, etc.
The fediverse has all the standard frictions of most OSS, like talking about itself, it’s technology, etc when the fact is 99% of users dgaf.
I might go so far as to argue the perceived complexity is a bigger barrier than the risk of sabotage from other businesses. I am optimistic the growing list of third party apps will help solve some of these issues, as long as they take things like the sign up process and server selection into their scope.
I agree, however, for my use cases little to none of that quality content came here and I’ve struggled to get it through other channels. My local subreddit I’ve taken a peek at and it’s as active as ever, along with a few others that are top of mind.
I’m glad to have learned about the fediverse but it is, currently at least, something different and I’m disappointed I might work in a quick web based scroll through some key subs.
Honestly the same thing I used to do with Facebook before it became a total and complete wasteland.