@atomicpoet@mastodon.social Try Fediverse observer instead: https://mastodon.fediverse.observer/stats

They are showing only 12.4K Mastodon instances, and 6.8M active users.

That means there are about 2.4K instances that aren't being counted - but those are likely very small instances that are less significant statistically speaking.

The get their active users through using the API's -- but I also have seen errors in their stats...for example at one point I saw several Pixelfed instances that were being listed as Mastodon instances...

Point is - the Mastocount numbers are overly optimistic. The Joinmastodon numbers are probably conservative, but more accurate given the sample size. The Fediverse Observer numbers are in the middle, which but have a degree of inaccuracy that is difficult to measure.