My primary reason for having a Mastodon account is so that when I write my next blog, I can syndicate posts out to it.
The 500 character limit is a nice improvement on Twitter's 140. I don't think the technical stuff that Mastodon/GNU Social uses is necessary. Strangely, I don't think federation is important either. But whatever.
Read more: https://indieweb.org/
@tommorris Somewhat agree. I'm still not seeing the big win on federation either (I'd love to federate if it would help in a tangible way).