I jumped on Mastodon because the thought of being able to run everything myself and still interact with everyone I knew was a huge plus.

...but, I realize this is a rare train of thought. Most people don't want to invest their time in running everything themselves.

And then there's some who just want to communicate with others and don't care about federation or instances or all of that, they just want something that works.

None of these viewpoints are wrong.