Yup, although the downside is that your posting style definitely shows off that you’re a Mastodon user.
Your use of the @ tag, the hashtag are all markers of a more Twitter-like user experience, and it makes you post stand out somewhat oddly for those using one of the lemmy instances. Either way, it’s really neat to be able to cross between those, since I vastly prefer the Lemmy UX as opposed to Mastodon’s, but I can still get a Mastodon’s content!
Historical legacy. It made sense when they were first rolling out. Someone would take the risk of trying to build up a market for these really expensive new devices and then the factory would swoop in and undercut them and destroy their business after they had done all the initial leg work of creating demand for the vehicles. They wanted protection from this.
Well, cars are now everywhere in the US market and it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort anymore to convince someone they need a car, and not just a horse. But the laws protecting “car market development” in the former of dealerships never went away.