I think thats growing based on name recognition, network effect and desire to get away from the big platforms. But when users realize that the operators of an instance can rug them, they'll be looking around for the next thing again. 

 OK, again....Mastodon and the Fediverse continue to grow in instances and users and provides a better user experience.

What does Nostr have to offer? What good is owning your npub is everything sucks?  

 I'm here to see the cathedral get built and interact with the builders as they do it. Nsecs and relays seem like the much better approach compared to activitypub 

 You are right! 

If Nostr wants to kick ass, do Nsecs and relays but everything else like Mastodon/Pleroma

Then, Nostr can be taken seriously . 

Alex Gleason is doing this now for Nostr with Ditto/Soapbox and it's beautiful. 

 Ditto sis pretty cool. Needs packages for the popular home server/bitcoin node systems out there like @umbrel and @Start9