Bit late on this subject, But since musky rat just banned mastodon links on Twitter, I figured i'd still post my experience with running a small Masotodon instance here.

What's Mastodon?

Mastodon is free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services. It has microblogging features similar to the Twitter service, which are offered by a large number of independently run nodes, known as instances, each with its own code of conduct, terms of service, privacy policy, privacy options, and moderation policies.

source: Wikipedia

What's good about mastodon?

Well, the first thing is that if you run your own instance YOU decide the rules. This can be both a pro and a con, Especially if you're not just using the instance for yourself.

I haven't really run into any moderation issues myself, But I have had to ban a couple of instances.. Instances that identified themselves as Kiwifarms (yikes!) and other just nasty stuff.

If you don't have the know-how on how to make a instance, There are plenty of pulicly available instances for you to join. Find one here

What's not so good about mastodon?

Because mastodon isn't run by a single large entity, Finding others is actually quite difficult if you don't already know where they are.
You CANNOT search over all of mastodon, since not everyone knows eachother.
You have to go out of your way to track down the handle + instance domain then go to your own instance to follow them.
If you're browsing another instance, You cannot do ANYTHING like follow, star or boost since that instance isn't your instance and you'll have to copy the link go to your own instance and paste it and THEN you can do it.

I Think this is the biggest hurdle for new users and it does make certain things incredibly clunky. (Not that i know of a better way to do it.)

What about twitter?

I'll probably keep using it till it becomes unusable, idk.
There's still a lot of people on there i like seeing and I don't want to use Hive or CoHost.

Twitter isn't bad on its own, it's a really good platform but it's being screwed up by a self-centered asshat.