I’m not sure popular is the biggest goal right now. It would definitely be nice for federated platforms to gain a bigger user base, but while the tools are growing, it’s really inspiring just to think that people are willing to invest the (low or no profit) time and energy into making the internet a nicer place.

I don’t know about usual, but there is a huge wall between private/ personal and public/ professional for me. Nothing personal ends up under my own name if I can help it. Basically, I’m using my name as if it were the name of a business, and I use an alias or nickname otherwise.