Many people say that they should consider Mastodon like email, but even then, there must be a forum where people need to meet in order to find like minded people and collect their email addresses. The moment such a forum develops, powerful people whose power is threatened by the meeting of such people will attack and destroy these meeting places. This will stop dissidents from getting their message out.
It was just a happy accident that town squares (where people were forced to come in order to buy and sell things) were owned by the government. Therefore a restriction on the government to stop it from restricting people to voice new ideas would mean that people would be exposed to new ideas. In this way, people were "forced" to consider new ideas or starve (If you did not go into the marketplace - which hosted the town square, you may starve as you could not get tomatoes or whatever. But if you did go, you will have to hear new ideas).
Today the town squares are Twitter, Facebook etc which are privately owned. If you cannot be on Twitter, Facebook etc you are screaming into the void. No one will hear your ideas. This will make the world less dynamic and less responsive to changing situations.
We are screwed.