You still pay someone else to run the server (or not, if you prefer), you can just choose who you pay, and which server. Sending toots does not require that you set up your own infra, re: the email example.
> People don't want to moderate themselves, they want a larger power to do it for them. It's why we have representative democracy instead of direct democracy: people don't want to be involved.
This is commonly asserted, but I’ve never seen much evidence for it. Was a direct democracy given a good run in the US at some-point? Do I need communications with my friends to be moderated? Does this effect only kick-in when finding strangers, attempting to influence millions at once, or selling ads? Moderation decisions on Facebook and Twitter make headlines at the moment, it doesn’t seem to me that people don’t care, or don’t want to be heard.
I agree with you that Mastodon is unlikely to ‘take-over’ Twitter or Facebook anytime soon. But that wouldn’t be my criteria for success.