People, largely, aren't staying off Twitter and Facebook because they're fed up with engagement-optimized platforms or because those companies have poor reputations or because they want decentralization. They left (or never joined) because their peer group left (or never joined). Take a casual poll of the teenagers and early-twentysomethings in your orbit, if you can: they're all probably on certain platforms and not on others. If you asked them why they aren't on Facebook they'd probably look confused and tell you that none of their friends are.
I never said that. But it’s an important point nonetheless, which I believe you are right about. If a transition happens, it will be in the layers where these things matter.
For instance, a fire department may switch from Twitter because it’s rate limited. A community for visually impaired may move from Reddit because it’s dragging its feet with accessibility. Journalists and media houses may switch because they get censored by a billionaire who’s on a quid pro quo relationship with entities they investigate. Regular “content creators” may switch when they get copyright strikes or demonetized by an automated system. In all of these cases, the small minority of “providers” take a large amount of “consumers” with them. Cumulative resentment looks just like apathy, until suddenly it doesn’t.
Most people are followers. Other liberties like freedom of the press are inapplicable to most people, directly. But the indirect effects, usually shepherded by “vocal minorities” has been shown again and again to add up and transform society rapidly, in something like S-shaped curves. If you accept the rapid growth phase of network effects you need to also acknowledging the rapid death phase on the other side of things.
