Yeah, I treated Twitter as a RSS platform where I could follow subject matter experts like scientists and writers and artists I liked.

I also used it to follow people and groups that weren't like me so i could learn. Like, "disability twitter" opened my eyes to some things I took for granted, because you had regular people dealing with those things just talking back and forth about it. If I shut my mouth and just listened, it opened up a whole new world.

For small-time creators making either art or science, Twitter was a good platform to get little chunks of info out to your followers. I don't know that Mastodon fills those shoes yet, but I hope it will.