Mastodon emerges as the clear winner. It’s free from investor influence, ad-free, and controlled by a community that values user autonomy over profit.

That's a gross assumption that people care about any of this. The tech-abled and tech-writers are in as much of a bubble as the Democrats were this past election.

The vast majority of people using social media do so for entertainment and passive news consumption and a ton of rage bait. Who owns or controls it is entirely irrelevant - ex., TikTok.

Ads? You think people in 2024 still care about ads? I think a lot of them enjoy it. Moreover, if you're a small or local business, you want a platform that allows you to promote your goods and services. This kind of opportunity is what made social media explode. If you were a community business, would you prefer to operate on a platform that was strictly chronological or one that allowed you to pay to get noticed? What if you were an "influencer"? While normal people may dislike this stuff, it's this stuff that generates revenue for the platform and, like it or not, increases engagement.

This lack of openness confines users to BlueSky alone, making it difficult to connect with friends on other platforms without creating a separate account.

How has this prevented Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube from succeeding?

You're trying to force a platform to do what you want it to do. You're not objectively looking at what the majority of social media users want. When I tell people about interconnected platforms, they have no clue what that means or why they would want that. They just want one platform.

You and I recognize the benefits of the Fediverse meaning one application to access many platforms. That may be a reality we observe one day but for now, nothing is fully developed. You're trying to convince people that robotaxies will replace vehicle ownership today when they're not done deploying them.

Mastodon’s structure, lacking an algorithm to push specific content, gives users freedom to create a feed that genuinely reflects their interests. For those who are politically inclined, Mastodon has communities and accounts covering all sides, but there’s no algorithm driving you toward any specific viewpoint.

If Bluesky has an algorithm, I haven't seen it. I get chronological posts from the accounts I follow with an occasional and subtle suggestion to follow other similar accounts. Many of the accounts I follow are news outlets, journalists, civic leaders, etc. Some of the accounts I followed on Twitter are finally joining Bluesky while less than a fraction of those are on Mastodon.

I've been using Mastodon more than Bluesky. I like the instance I'm a member of which is operated by people in my physical community. Today I saw that more and more members of my community have joined Bluesky, including my local paper. I can not express the joy I've felt this afternoon seeing a platform blossom like the Twitter of old.

Betamax was superior to VHS. DVD Audio was superior to SACD. You may think the flexibility of Windows or Android makes them superior to MacOS or iOS. Ultimately, it comes down to marketing and convenience.

How do you make Mastodon better? You have to get brands over there. You have to get journalists and news outlets over there. When CNN reports that someone said something on Twitter, that's marketing for that platform. When [the news] starts reporting that [celebrity] or [president] posted on Mastodon - then maybe you'll start getting some traction. But why would that person post something so important on a platform with so few users?