Best analogy I keep coming back to is an instance is like a PHP forum where it can talk to and display other forums.

Does anyone know of any Game Theory-esque analysis of how late-stage Fediverse is supposed to work? What’s the end game? What happens to the Fediverse with all the different kinds of players involved at this point?

This is a problem for potential growth. The language surrounding the Fediverse, the people communicating it’s strengths, the wild west flavor, and the content within the sites themselves are going to be geared towards that demographic. Late Gen-X and early Millennials are probably going to feel at home here but if we don’t work towards making the Fediverse more inclusive to other demographics it won’t be adopted as much as we would like.