I don't think people are realising the danger the Fediverse is in.
The only thing stopping corporations and VCs taking over this place is that the Fediverse is spread out on many different servers, which makes it very difficult to purchase.
If most of the Fediverse ends up on mastodon.social, which is now a strong possibility, there will be nothing to stop most of it being sold to Musk or Zuckerberg or whoever.
The bigger mastodon.social becomes, the more likely a buyout is to happen.
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Here's what Eugen Rochko's Mastodon gGmbH organisation now controls:
-The Mastodon server software & API (though the current version is FOSS)
-The mastodon.social server, which has 1 in 7 of all Fediverse users
-The official Mastodon apps, now telling people to just sign up on mastodon.social
-The official website at joinmastodon.org
-The trademark for the word "mastodon", which lets them dictate terms to any server which uses it
This is a tempting package for any potential buyers.
(2/4)
The trademark alone gives Mastodon gGmbH huge power, it lets them tell any server using the word "mastodon" in its domain name what software or forks it can use.
And it's getting worse. Mastodon gGmbH is now making official apps which direct people to sign up on mastodon.social instead of a random trusted server or choice of trusted servers.
The more people sign up on mastodon.social, the more tempting Mastodon gGmbH becomes as a takeover target.
(3/4)
@feditips How does your grandmother know what a trusted server is, compared to mastodon.social? It's like everyone using Microsoft or Google for email. Choices are endless, but leaving too many choices for the users causes decision paralysis.
@mrhamel This. Most people will go with the name that has become familiar by osmosis, and most (including people who've been through the "my platform got bought out and declined, now my social circle is in six places and it's too quiet here" saga a few too many times) are confused and irritated at this point. And then there's the people who've had multiple abortive attempts at setting up on a new server, and may well settle for the biggest name in the end.
@mrhamel Exactly. Back in early days, back to e-mail, the majority of people was using e-mail services provided by their ISP or their university or their company, way fewer of them by "public" (and also back then mostly ad-funded) provides such as yahoo or lycos. In the Fediverse days, servers are operated by random people out there it seems, and figuring out who to trust and why is not a trivial thing. 
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