The goal for OSS projects is always different. Many projects solve a problem for the developer(s) and them alone. They don’t care about it ‘thriving’ or adding features that don’t align with that problem.

I find it confusing when people complain that other people won’t spend time implementing things that they want. If you want feature A, fork the project and add it. I appreciate that’s easier said than done, but if you can’t or won’t do that, stop complaining about what other people do with their time.

Not all software is the same. Get used to them being different.

it hasn’t been able to capitalize on the many waves of exodus and twitter controversies for over two years now

You’re making the assumption that it wants to.

The goals of Mastodon are very different from Twitter.