Not sure about hackers but the lack of search is a killer for anyone normal. Also, threads or rather the lack thereof in Mastodon is not great either.

If no normie can use them, what's the point?

Mass social networks are influencer territory.

You do want the reach —otherwise you'd just make a group on Session with your friends or whatever.

The centralized platforms are a dictatorship of sorts but they make the often insufficient effort to include groups that hate each other.

If a Mastodon instance can become that centralized platform, I'll be the first to sign up.