There’s been a lot of talk positioning Mastodon as an alternative to Facebook. It’s more an alternative to Twitter, but it isn’t quite that, either.
It’s an engine that powers multiple alternatives to Twitter, that talk to each other.
Most people are used to social networks as services: FB, birdsite, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc. So they expect Mastodon to be one service, which can be confusing.
I wonder if emphasizing its nature as the engine for many services would make it easier to explain.