Saying "Not one of the programmers I follow have posted on mastodons in months" we can't argue with, I don't know who those people are, that's your subjective experience and YMMV, you do you.

But this is not my subjective experience actually. And yes I follow "programmers" and other IT people in the mix. I'm not here to tell you what's true _for you_ but you appear to be telling me that what I experience isn't "reality". It works fine for me, as I said above.

"Discussions happen only on X not Y" is a binary, absolutist, black or white thinking that's if taken literally, ridiculous. I suppose you would also say that this here isn't a discussion?

Discussions and communities are going to happen in different places. It's almost like there's a use for a protocol that lets them interoperate in some kind of "loose association".