And if you understand tech – like, really understand it – you must recognize, just as Lance Ulanoff had recognized, that some weird wannabe social network with no large corporation behind it and no VC money in the bank cannot work, should not work, will not work. Eight years on, Mastodon – along with the rest of the Fediverse, of which Mastodon is but a part, and which Lance Ulanoff decided to wholly ignore of course, the seasoned tech journalist that he is – chugs along nicely. Which they sometimes do: at some point very soon, octodon.social , one of the oldest Mastodon instances – started, in fact, days before Lance Ulanoff published his piece – will shut down for good.