I used to say Twitter was only as good - or bad - as who you followed. Follow good/interesting/ funny people, and you're gold. That wasn't 100% true, because Twitter liked to guess what might "promote engagement" and put it in your feed - but it was mostly true.
Best thing about mastodon? No computer showing me what it guesses I might like. My feed is who I follow (and what they boost) - nothing more. That's honestly delightful. I can go look at what people I don't follow post - but I don't have to, and it's not forced in front of me.
I used to brace myself logging into Twitter - you had to wade thru the sewer to find the good bits. But my tiny following list on mastodon produces more good stuff than Twitter did - I can only imagine how nice it will be once the birdsite dies off and I track down more good people to follow.