I actually don't disagree with your point. I'm merely explaining why fediverse-style platforms always get the complaint it sucks because it's harder to use than the centralized alternative, even among a community that should be used to such platforms.

You seem to be assuming that everyone who doesn't want to jump through hoops at signup is a low-quality user. This seems like a very flawed (or pretentious?) view. "Low-quality users" are a subset of "users who don't want to jump through hoops at signup", but the subset is small in comparison to the superset.

My university professors are low effort users. Some of them are even CS adjacent.

Selective low effort is what those professors exhibit. But their ideas are valuable and worth publicizing.

Twitter is an example of many low-effort scientists writing some good content.

Well, this one got a lot of response heat, I'm picking you to respond to.

Twitter is also the current textbook example of the problem with low-effort platforms that are controlled by capital. Like, do I even need to explain this to anyone? Are there still any Musk fanboys in the room who think he's playing 4d chess?

But while Twitter circles the drain and the world scrambles to figure out what to use instead, and Mastodon steps up as a competitor which cannot be seized and ruined by capital, ever, Reddit stands firm as the one true platform that got it right! Everyone gazes in awe at the one last hope for the capitalist internet, which seems to be doing just fine.

And Reddit looked over at Twitter, and then Reddit looked down like Rorschach, and said... "Hold my Over 8000 beers..."

You can’t just categorize people into being low-effort. Motivation is continuously changing, it is absolutely possible that someone will post an absolutely fascinating comment once they find that great unique context.

Also, reddit’s value is exactly that you have very different demographics on each subreddit, and “hearing the voice” of people is the whole point.