Breaking networks effects is extremely tough. It's not enough that you move, but all your social circle needs to move for it to be worth it... and for them to move all their social circle needs to move as well.
In all honesty, I think the only way for network effects to be broken is more of a generational change than anything else. If young people go to mastodon instead of twitter then content starts to be generated there and people will start moving. These "migrations" are pretty doomed to fail. People only migrate when everyone else has already left.
I think it's more likely that people stop using twitter altogether than them moving to mastodon, but once people no longer use twitter; then mastodon will have a chance to capture new users. Much like how vine died (well, in this case, it was shut down by twitter) and then tiktok appeared; had vine continued, I doubt tiktok would have been able to capture the market as it did.
To think there ever was a chance is a mistake. In reality, twitter did not really change substantially fast enough under Musk to cause enough people to leave. And most importantly, people leaving doesn't necessarily mean they want to go back to "a twitter clone" again. It probably means people spend more time on the rest of the platforms they already use.
Virtue signaling, is based on the premise that talking is easy and it brings you a serotonin rush to be validated by other people that feel the need to show the world they think the same as you, but then, you don't really have to put any real effort to change absolutely anything, and it's even socially acceptable in your like minded circle, to continue your daily life disregarding or doing the opposite of the principles you voice.
Moving away from Twitter would break both. 1st, you would have a lot less people validating you, breaking your serotonin rush. 2nd Actually changing platforms and building a new follower base involved some work.
You make a lot of good points, but you fail to realise that your points make "failure" or "success" relative to the way people were using the platform.
For a Twitter user that spends most of their effort posting low-quality content to countless followers, then your points 1 and 2 apply and a move to Mastodon would likely "fail".
For a Twitter user that spends most of their effort infinite-scrolling through an algo-manicured feed of content, then they'll be sorely disappointed as _you_ have to manicure your own feed by finding people and hashtags to follow. This is a variant of your point 2.
For those Twitter users that actively build little communities, where the connections matter, the content to/from each other matters, and they care little for the algo-feed, then Mastodon can, and has, been very successful. I know because I'm one of those, and the thematic server I've joined as a lot of like-minded members. We've created a lovely little community which I really enjoy, to the point of donating to the server admin to scale his infrastructure. But yes, this requires effort. For me the reward is worth it.
Just save yourself. There's no reason to wait for everyone else to join you on whatever soon to be s*** network that comes after Twitter. Delete your account, delete the app. Live your life, you're free.
In all honesty, I think the only way for network effects to be broken is more of a generational change than anything else. If young people go to mastodon instead of twitter then content starts to be generated there and people will start moving. These "migrations" are pretty doomed to fail. People only migrate when everyone else has already left.
I think it's more likely that people stop using twitter altogether than them moving to mastodon, but once people no longer use twitter; then mastodon will have a chance to capture new users. Much like how vine died (well, in this case, it was shut down by twitter) and then tiktok appeared; had vine continued, I doubt tiktok would have been able to capture the market as it did.
To think there ever was a chance is a mistake. In reality, twitter did not really change substantially fast enough under Musk to cause enough people to leave. And most importantly, people leaving doesn't necessarily mean they want to go back to "a twitter clone" again. It probably means people spend more time on the rest of the platforms they already use.