I’m technical (as most people are on HN), but I don’t care how it works. I don’t care whether it’s a service or a protocol. I don’t care if it’s centralized or federated. What I want to know is how I use it as easily as possible. If that requires me to know the details - it failed. By “failed” in this context I mean “to be a viable Twitter alternative”. There may be other goals such as being a viable social network/protocol on a different scale or with other goals than being a Twitter competitor - but I don’t think most are interested in Mastodon for any purpose other than as a Twitter alternative.