the fediverse keeps putting down this issue as trivial, but in the modern world it really isn't.

The email analogy doesn't line up when the expectation of modern social media is go to one website and sign up. Not to mention the choice of identity with the different servers.

This is one of the reasons why Bluesky works. Even if AT Protocol gets federated among multiple services, when you sign up for Bluesky, the hosting server is auto selected to them.

the question is how do we manage the onboarding of new users who have little to no concern or patience for hurdles or friction, and still spread people out so they're not all on the same instance?

New user onboarding challenges? Clearly communicate benefits of the platform for potential users. That will motivate them a bit to invest in learning.

will it?

Curious of the specific benefits you propose that would persuade the general public to make the additional effort over other streamlined and centralised services?

Try more privacy, control over your account, less creepy garbage in your feeds, less unrequested ads, less surveillance economics practices, more focused and quality sharing and communications with people you select, etc etc.

Let's go through them from a mass market P.O.V
- More privacy: they don't care
- Control over your account: they don't care
- Less creepy garbage in your feeds: they might care but depending on what you define as creepy and what you actually see in your feed (opposed to what other people see)
- Less ads or surveillance: they don't care
- better sharing and comms with people you care about: again maybe but people don't leave Instagram yet despite this.

I personally like these benefits (it's why I'm here), but by the numbers if these things were important for the general public, Meta would not be the biggest social media company in the world.

They have consistently done everything against these goals for two decades, yet they are still the biggest player.

🧵 Maybe try speaking to old ladies and other folks who hate trying to understand technology-- like me.

Before joining #Mastodon, I did not know what an "instance" was, nor did I care. My husband is a Network Engineer, so I understood a bit about "servers." But I made three attempts before successfully creating a Mastodon account. I nearly gave up!

Only after I had been on Mastodon for a long time did I realize WHY things are spread out in the #Fediverse and the many benefits to #federation .

Why should I have to take a computer class or learn to be a computer expert just to chat with people? I don't need to do that to send emails, or texts, or to post on corporate platforms. I shouldn't have to speak like a computer programmer just to talk to people.

Make the Fediverse "Granny Friendly." Don't ask me to pick something when I don't even know what it is, or choose between options when I don't know why I should choose one over another...

Also: Don't ask me to choose between instances if you don't tell me what each of them are and how they're different. (Ahem, #Pixelfed -- which gave me NO clues about the different instances when I signed up last night. My only option was to pick one of the icons, and sign in there. So I chose the largest one, and assumed I could migrate later on-- Yes, this old techno-phobe has learned how to do that, too, with time! LOL)

Even when googling, I could find no list to say anything about the instances. When signing up for Mastodon, there was a list showing what each instance specialized in or most appealed to. Did I like humor? Science? Music? Did I want to focus on politics? I could see which Mastodon/Fediverse server to sign up with for that.

But not so for Pixelfed. That needs to be addressed.

Maybe @FediTips or someone at @pixelfed could make a linked list of them, with some description abt what their focuses are? That would be nice.

I run a website at https://fedi.garden which lists well-run instances in exactly that way. There are just a few from Pixelfed at the moment (https://fedi.garden/tag/pixelfed/), but I'll try to add more.

Pixelfed's official website https://pixelfed.org also has an instance list at https://pixelfed.org/servers

At the moment though, they tend to be mostly general purpose servers, possibly because Pixelfed is newer than Mastodon?

Thank you! You have always been an excellent source for Fediverse information.