If you want non-tech people to discover and use things, you have to be more concise. Explaining the Fediverse is not a trivial task.

How often have you been on the front lines of communicating with non-tech people? I was in charge of customer support for years, answered emails and took phone calls with users of all levels for years and I'm telling you that in the little blip that this was in #LastWeekTonight, it was not possible to shove in the concept of the Fediverse, especially to people who have not ever experienced anything like that before.

Giving the names of two masks of the Fediverse gives people a place to jump in, where I'm sure they will immediately be met by pedantic hectoring about the Fediverse vs. any one mask of the Fediverse in the time-honored welcome that has driven many away from the Fediverse and over to BlueSky. *sad trombone*

What's the number reason normal people are put off from joining Mastodon and why is it shit like this?

Do you also explain web browsers by saying the underlying protocol also allows file transfer, file editing, calendaring, printing, and remote procedure calls?