It's amusing that, according to the article, there has been a "compelling open source alternative to" twitter since 2016. Yet, the ending of the article is a request for the reader to share the article on... twitter.
It's not marketing imo, it's the type of social network. What made linkedin and facebook take off was the fact that you follow people in your real social network. Almost all my twitter followers/followees I've never met, so there is not really a viral growth coefficient.
