@ainmosni my personal theory is because the Fediverse kind of mimics IRL third spaces, and those are almost non existent in North America. And the few third spaces they have are highly centralized, like, for example, churches, so they resemble more the mediated experience on Facebook or Twitter than the more fragmented experience on Mastodon or Lemmy.
That's not to say that I don't welcome all the Americans that are here, or will join, but it just feels that Europeans tend to have a higher retention here, and seem to be less interested in things like #BlueSky.
@ainmosni National servers probably make the difference.
Any US-American will have more problems with discovery of content (No search on Mastodon but hashtags). The choice of instances may be intimidating for someone - firehose of any big instance's local feed is too much and a small tematical one will amplify your FOMO. They want to see content tailored to their preferences, but isn't a thematical instance too limiting? (they don't know, that almost every server allows generalist talk).
A language barreer eases the choice. Almost every German state has a server (like Berlin), there are only several Polish instances, and so on. Local timelines are easier to browse on regional servers.
US-Americans have too much social mobility to have this European experience.
And Europeans are generally more comfortable with "national" social networks. I am writing this from /kbin, appreciated as Reddit-alternative on the Fediverse. However, its developer modelled it actually on wykop.pl - another link aggregator, much more popular in Poland, than Reddit.
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