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I don’t think funneling more people to one mega-instance is a good idea…
It's not. The sign-up process needs to be simplified, sure, and some "default" options need to be presented to the people trying to join, but focusing on one mega-instance is simply dangerous and goes against the whole idea of decentralization.
I think mastodon needs a account creation wiszard that asks what the user is interested in. Once it gets that information it should have the user choose between 3 different instances.
it's one good step—although with the caveat that it has drawbacks in a decentralized system—but i fear it might still be too little, too late with the rise of bluesky which is much more straightforward. this has always been a big point of friction with mastodon's adoption (and it hasn't helped that many people are dismissive of the problem or are bad at explaining it to people who aren't familiar with how it works!)
I haven't tried it, but I would guess Bluesky is more straightforward today because it is not (yet) federated. The very concept of instances is, apparently, confusing to people.
It's a legit confusing concept. The only place where people understand it is e-mail, and I am not really sure that they understand it.
The confusion on Fedi is somewhat worse than email too, I believe, because user accounts are tied to an instance. So the user is expected to make judgements about moderation policies and the local community before deciding to choose, which makes the decision problem hard.
I am still really, deeply hoping for someone to soon spec out user account decentralization on Mastodon. Where my user account is a portable file (like a public/private key pair) and instances become communities and providers of service not owners of accounts.
But that's exactly how e-mail works.
Portable accounts, I would love that too, but it is technically difficult. The way activitypub works now doesn't really make it possible I think, other solutions would probably have drawbacks.
Well regarding email, generally email providers don't really care as long as you don't breach a generic TOS. You join a specific mastodon instance, post about grilling some steak, and promptly get banned because it turns out veganism is required on the instance (which, you know, fair). So I can understand users feel extra-confused when trying to pick an instance.
I think it's possible, and in fact being worked on, but I of course don't know if it will actually materialize in Mastodon...
Is there a single instance that has veganism required? Maybe that vegan one? But that's down I think? They probably had like 15 users. Let them have their funny rules instance ^^
I feel like a few posts with people talking about the rules they or their obscure instance has make the rounds and hundreds of people feel like they're oppressed by them.
I am on a fairly strictly moderated instance and I never saw many problem with them, nor with users on the server or on others. Yes, sometimes the rules are enforced, but that's great, I don't want follower spam from temporary servers and stuff like that. I couldn't be on a server that theoretically has an admin but they're never thinking about the social space they're creating or actually handling reports.
Oh no I'm not talking about oppression. Generally I feel most instances are pretty chill. But as Joinmastodon.org lists instances and describes their general purpose (and perhaps rules) I can imagine users feel a little confused about what's the best choice for them. Versus email which is mostly "what is the domain name" and "does their webmail not suck".
Oh I see!
Bye, gotta go to bed now ^^
The only place where people understand it is e-mail
and mobile and internet carriers. and using the same roads with different car brands and kinds of vehicles.
Using the same road with different cars isn't really analogous to federation. But the comparison to mobile and internet is good, however, it's not one I've ever been presented until now. It's still a relatively new concept for most, and there needs to be more people explaining how a platform can exist across multiple web pages with rather strikingly different experiences on each although a fundamentally shared experience too.
Using the same road with different cars isn’t really analogous to federation
they all use the same protocol (AsphaltPub), and you don't have to drive a Tesla to interact with (get rear-ended by) one. QED.
I actually think that's not a bad idea, because I agree with this article that being faced with the choice of server from the get-go is the biggest barrier of entry for users compared to typical sites. Lemmy could do something similar if the lemmy.ml, beehaw.org or another instance has sufficient resources.
The interoperability of servers is definitely essential to the Fediverse network so I hope that stays sacrosanct no matter how big one instance gets in the future.
The suggestion of a simple method to transfer into separate instances without "losing/abandoning the content in your main account" is definitely something worth considering. That way if people join the default site, then decide they want their own "Truth Social 🤡" or hardcore LateStageCommunism stuff they can bring themselves and their buddies to their own community there.