Let me preface this by saying: I'm pretty sure mastodon will tick along, much like usenet, myspace, IRC, bebo, orkut, livejournal, or even dreamwidth as long as there's an admin with enough spare cash and time. It obviously works for some people, and I can't deny that.
On the other hand, the illustrious technical aim of a purely federated world being the dominant form of social network just seems a little naive at the best of times, given past examples.
This post is about the social and the technical problems with a federated model.
