Mastodon is pretty novel. I like to see [decentralized thing] working within modern conventions. You come to notice a lot of nostalgia for older protocols and technology like IRC around this area of technology, but it's refreshing to note that here is a genuine decentralized social network built in the last decade that hasn't imploded or immediately succumbed to irrelevence. It's a forward win, instead of imploring a return to earlier software that hasn't adjusted to how we use the internet now.
This is not a diss on older technologies, but I do think it speaks to the idea that Twitter's framework is a more universally relevant structure for communicating than we give it credit for. In other words, Twitter as we know it probably could have worked in some form many years before it was invented because the structure itself is unique, effective, and practical for a broadly usable type of communication.
