Yea I'd say its gonna be a while befote the idea of federated social media really takes off. I think one of the bigger reasons is just ease of use.

The federation aspect of this is kinda confusing when your first hear about and most users just want an easy experience.

Now you can say "oh just join lemmy.world and be done with it" but then comes another issue. Which is "wheres my account in this other instance?" Its not there. And it wont be there until porting accounts becomes a more integrated part of Lemmy and other federated socail medias.

I think those are the biggest things holding it back for now. I think it will catch on as more and more folks become more aware of (and care about) corporations like facebook(meta) or reddit don't care what you think and will walk all over you for a quick buck.