I have been working in software development for 2 decades. I’m saying that to make the point that I’m in the more technical group of internet users.
Anyway even I just jumped ship from Twitter to mastodont without really understanding how it worked.
So I’m pretty sure lots of users just signed up with the first server they found and slowly realized it wasn’t just a Twitter clone.
Now that I do understand it I really love the concept, but it’s definitely different than just Twitter.
For example I use two accounts on different servers with very different content. Personally I really like that separation.
When I buy a laptop it always comes with windows. I always play with it a day or two. Install Linux and that’s it. Have used osx or macOS a few times, but it’s not my thing.
Anyway software I use (that probably also works with macOS).
Meld (tools to compare 2 text files)
Firefox (still the best open source browser)
VLC (video player)
Filezilla (ftp client)
Audacity (audio editor)
Franz (chat client for lots of services)