The more people see the engagement, the more chance of them asking “what is that?” It won’t be long until the apps are better, and links to articles could be less likely to get suppressed than migration memes.
I can only speak for myself, but I only saw Mastodon as viable after I started being exposed to the content there…
That’s how a shadow ban works. You think you’re posting as normal, and you see your posts, but your posts don’t show up for others and your votes don’t count.