Fair assessment. Though I'm not all the way through yet, I do know there is a massive amount of lore in the game, and a lot I've already personally read through in game. One big place a lot of people seem to miss with Souls games as far as the lore is item descriptions. Each item has a basic description, then a way more detailed description on a separate menu (PS5 you hit the square button to get the detailed description). The items you get along the way are a huge part of the lore.
Between that and talking to Gideon and a few others, I feel like I have a good baseline. I expect a lot more to come in the areas I'm about to tackle.
All that said: I'm a huge RPG fan and love a story-driven game. But that is not at all my motivation for playing any Souls game. It's all about the gameplay; that super rewarding game loop that they have mastered.
To be honest, I'm not tech illiterate and still struggle with Mastodon. I struggle to search/find stuff to follow outside of my local server. I know it's there and doable, but it should be obvious on how to find what I want to follow. If I struggle even a little bit with this, the average casual user, which these platforms will need for long term success, won't even bother.