I totally agree as well. I put two different approaches before in:
We have seen over time that big implementations, like Mastodon, only opportunistically engage with the broader development community. Though that is fine- these are their own project’s consideration, after all - it is not good for open standards evolution.
Each project puts their own project-specific concerns first, but those should not be driving the ecosystem with “follow the leader” post-facto interoperability. If we want the most healthy ecosystem and see long-term interoperability improvements then the open standards should the source of truth, the place to look at first.
Right now I have a strong feeling that the post-facto Mastodon technology adoption is hampering the Fediverse from coming to its full potential.
Coincidentally Angelo Veltens today tooted a paper that has some strategies to follow to improve the situation: