It wasn’t so long ago that #Mastodon made up 90% of MAUs on the #Fediverse. Hell, it so dominated Fediverse usage that, for most people, Mastodon was the Fediverse.

But now Mastodon’s percentage of MAUs stands at 58%. And it’s probably lower because the second most popular Fediverse software distribution, #Misskey, doesn’t accurately report MAUs. So what happened?

I suspect four things:

1. Mastodon validated the concept of a Fediverse, which prompted more devs to build for #ActivityPub
2. As Big Social alienated their userbase, some of this userbase sought Fediverse alternatives. This is what drove popularity of #Lemmy and #Pixelfed.
3. #Bluesky became the default alternative to #Twitter instead of Mastodon
4. As Mastodon users became aware of a greater Fediverse, many migrated to other Fediverse software

Obviously, Mastodon is alive and kicking. It’s not going anywhere. Its continuing development is critical to the success of the Fediverse.

But at the same time, the success of Mastodon led to the success of other federated projects. And it works the other way around too. The success of other federated projects is also Mastodon’s success.

So really, lower MAUs for Mastodon is actually a giant win for the big pachyderm.