They’re blinded by their follower count.

Even if most of their 'followers' are bots, and they don't interact with the few who aren't? This is something I keep seeing: A lot of people want social media to be "I talk to an audience". If you want that, write a blog and disable comments. Social media is for interaction.

Also what are the options? We are not only niche, but we have a culture of trying to drive out mainstream journalists (and no video). Mastodon has the whole instance issue. I completely get why it happened.