I agree that Twitter was a weird amalgamation of different people who wanted to use the site for different things… but for me that’s one of the things that made it compelling. I get to read a person’s musing on JavaScript frameworks and also see pictures of their dog and see them react in real time to a World Cup game.

IMO Twitter was a very compelling place to be during a breaking news event (and I don’t just mean political news, could be cultural, sports etc) and none of the alternatives have replicated that yet. Mastodon is maybe not even technically capable of it (because federation introduces a delay in message delivery).

I do enjoy niche discussions on Mastodon but once you’ve removed time as an influential factor for importance the default chronological view doesn’t feel anywhere near as to me.