Don’t get me wrong I’m a big fan but it seems like the fediverse could theoretically exist with like 5 users whereas a commercial company needs users for revenue. It feels like we are using the masters tools to try to destroy the masters house
One could make the argument that 5000 users is still not mass adoption. If that is enough activity, then mass adoption is not a requirement for the fediverse to be a nice social place to be.
5,000 users in a niche community would need hundreds of millions in the wider network.
This is how bulletin boards used to work. The most successful were focused on a niche and one with 5,000 users would be big enough to be of use to people interested in that niche. But when your niche is part of a much larger community covering all niches, that community needs to be vast to get 5,000 subscribing to any given niche.
