It's not that people aren't sticking around Mastodon.
There's more active users now than there were in September. Back then, there were only ~50,000 active users per month.
It's that a certain segment of registrations were done either in protest, or as a Plan "B" if the Plan "A" (Twitter continues to be a going concern) fails.
That said, if Mastodon is seen merely as a Twitter alternative it will fail.
It's not a Twitter alternative.
@atomicpoet Elmo drove a million to Mastodon, but not just any random million, but a million of the most thoughtful, aware, switched-on, and interesting people on Twitter. He lobotomized Twitter and this is going to have long-term effects.
I check Twitter every week or two. Within 5 minutes I've already had enough and log out.
His actions also scared the crap out of people and organizations who use(d) Twitter for emergency communication and coordination. It's no longer a trustworthy platform. The result of this will evolve slowly because those organizations are now making other plans and it takes time to redesign their infrastructure and implement it.
