> This isn't the world of BBSes where everyone had a corner or two that they hung out on.

That's exactly what Mastodon is. The whole reason mastodon exists is because a whole lot of people wanted exactly this experience.

Mastodon won't win because they aren't playing. Which again, is the whole point. It's extremely deliberate and intentional. People use mastodon because the "game" is abhorrent and objectively extremely bad for people individually and society as a whole.

So mastodon eschews the gamification and like farming and fake notifications. One of the most common jokes throughout the whole network is "wow, this post blew up and is doing Real Numbers" and the post has like ten boosts and twenty likes. It's extremely rare to see more than a couple hundred notes on any one post.

It's on purpose. Mastodon users like and actively want it to be this way.