When your social network is so difficult articles are written to explain it, you know you have a problem (and this is different in nature from having a platform's meta and customs spelled out)

Another fundamental problem with Mastodon: the federated and local timelines, that include all users, will naturally push users towards a more limited number of conversations, maybe only one or two. Marginal conversations, however interesting they may be, won't reach bigger audiences because of all the noise (on the other hand, abuse is less incentivised). This will limit the overall reach and potential of the network.
(Sorry for spamming, correcting a stupid mistake; Do add an edit button next)

@usercount does that represent the whole network, or just the mastodon.social instance?