Is Mastodon really dead?

Pundits like to claim that Mastodon is failing, but I find it to be a lot more active than any of the other new social sites and I get a lot more engagement there.

I have around 780 followers on Mastodon and 1200 on Twitter, but I get many more likes, replies, and reposts on Mastodon.

Yesterday I posted this same picture on both Twitter and Mastodon, and immediately got many more likes and reposts on Mastodon than Twitter.

Mastodon post with 325 likes and 147 boosts
Twitter post with 252 likes and 21 retweets