Maybe when explaining the fediverse to new people, or outsiders, or journalists, we shouldn't focus on explaining multiple servers so much. What it is, is social media like twitter but run by volunteers. I think that's the important distinguishing part.

Then when they ask how it's organised, who's in charge and stuff like that, who sets the rules, then we can say volunteers can setup their own servers with their own rules. Only when they wonder stuff like that, this server thing becomes interesting. Until then, it's just details.