I would be awestruck if they made a web version. Instagram goes through great pains to screw web users. Apps have more control and collect more data after all.

Embeddable Tweets are a fundamental part of what made Twitter an integral part of our lives. There will be embeddable Threads.

They have already said it's in the works.

I think the lack of a web client is a big reason. Also, I'm not sure if there's an API for it. If there isn't, that would need to be implemented.

Also, one can only login through instagram login id.

I kind of doubt it will get an API. Seems like Reddit and Twitter have come to regret how much power an API gives to users to sidesteps or whatever they don't like about the platform.

>Mastodon seems like the alternative if you really hate that kind of setup, but... it doesn't seem to have much traction.

People keep saying this as if the only "success" mastadon can have is by being in everyone's pocket. It's not an SV unicorn startup, it's not trying to buy out some investors. It's doing exactly what it is designed to do: be a user owned platform. Not everyone will want that all the time, and some people will never want that, and that's fine, not everyone spent 24/7 on the forums of the old web either.

We could stop considering "Everyone is using it all the time" as the desired end goal maybe?

for social media though that's a pretty important end goal. If the people I want to follow aren't using it, then I don't want to use it either. It's like with messenger apps - the one that everyone else is using is the one that wins. And if they aren't using it and I am, then part of my use of the platform becomes trying to get the people I want to talk to onto the platform. It's not a silicon valley thing - it's a communications thing. "everyone is using it all the time" was an important end goal for the post office too, and highways and other shared infrastructure with network effects.

> It seems to have enough people that it has some legs.

My view too. Not the best service ever offered, but allows me to continue distancing myself from Twitter.

Would I much prefer it if Twitter was a public company and/or ran by anyone else? Sure, but that isn't happening, so, I'll take Mastodon and any other reasonable alternative. We'll see how the market pans out.

An aspect of me wants Mastodon to win... but there's a deep cynicism in it ever working at Twitter scale (which may be the point, in the end).