@Gargron the thing i've been seeing is that, because people are so used to monolithic, homogenous social media platforms, they assume mastodon.social is "the" mastodon, not even aware that other instances exist, or are too intimidated by the idea to try them out
whenever i suggest the fedi to people, i always emphasize the fact that there are many instances to choose from, but i can see how some might not understand or be overwhelmed by the idea if they're exploring on their own