Arguably, Bluesky being spun off from Twitter and having Jack Dorsey as one of the founding members is a somewhat Meta-like advantage, in a sense of immediate legitimacy in the press and networking opportunities/connections in Silicon Valley. Mastodon had to start absolutely from scratch. I had zero connections to anyone important when I launched it. Bluesky also raised over $8M in venture capital funding, while Mastodon was being developed on a $0/mo budget for the first year of its existence, and something like $5000/mo for the next 5. Our current annual budget of around $500K still pales in comparison to the money Bluesky has at their disposal right now to spend on e.g. marketing. They also have the advantage of not really trying to do decentralization. That being said, venture capital money isn't free, while Mastodon's funding comes from the community with no strings attached, so in the long term, I believe in our approach.
To add some color to my comments: I also believe in your approach and I admire the work you and your team have done.
To sum up my entirely unoriginal opinions:
1. Mastodon has far better usability than any other Fediverse software I'm aware of
2. Despite this, usability is still a material coefficient of drag on Mastodon's growth
To be clear, I don't believe Mastodon has to or even should aspire to match the growth of other more centralized networks; only that usability is a drag on what would otherwise be natural growth for Mastodon itself.
I know you and your team spend a considerable amount of time and energy on usability, so I hope I'm not saying anything you don't already know infinitely better than I.
