It can sometimes be a bit misleading when you get a lot of ideas and feature requests in a community, and the conversations become, “We definitely need feature X to grow because that’s what’s stopping people from using the platform.” While that’s true in some cases, the sad reality is that any flaw can be overlooked as long as the people you want to reach are there. And that’s why so many people are still using X, which, by the way, is an absolutely god-awful platform.
Okay, I actually agree with this.
I don't think we needed quote posts and that's why people weren't using the platform. I think it's just technical and fiddly compared to some other places where you accept the default experience, and that's why it's more popular.
Mastodon and the fediverse don't have an onboarding team. They actually don't even have a financial incentive to bring more people here. It's apples and oranges. It's DIY internet vs. a slick, corporate experience with tens of millions of dollars in investment capital. These two worlds just cannot ever exist on the same playing field, the difference in the level of exposure alone is ridiculous.
(I literally heard someone claim Mastodon had better hurry up and implement quote posts back in 2022 because otherwise Post News was gonna eat the fedi's lunch and now Post News no longer exists, so for all the claims about 'implement feature or else', I'm skeptical).
