joinmastodon.org (the ‘official’ way to get join mastodon), has a default server for its join button. To me this looks very similar to the default server that appears when you try to create a bluesky account. So… I guess that’s not a barrier after all.
Install the official Mastodon app on your phone, launch it, scroll past the instance selection box that railroads you to mastodon.social anyway, and it’s no more complicated than Twitter. It’s just that nobody knows that.
Fun fact: The official Bluesky app has a selection box for a PDS, too. It’s no more and no less complicated than the official Mastodon app. Nobody knows that either.
Granted, of course, if you let yourself be railroaded, the place where you land in the Fediverse won’t be the bee’s knees, and you won’t know that there are not only better Mastodon instances (or more Mastodon instances in the first place), but also better server applications than Mastodon (or anything else than Mastodon in the Fediverse in the first place). But hey, it’s easy-peasy.
Hey… that just gave me a small idea… what if we made a “flock” or “herd” of Mastodon servers? The group of servers would all federate with each other, have the same block and allow lists, moderation policy and teams spread throughout them.
When you make an account you can be assigned a random instance name within the flock. If your instance goes down you could still possibly log in using other servers? Main benefit would be spreading server costs and maintenance effort and de-centralized operating, but still keep a centralized feel to it?
Honestly that’s probably the best sort of solution. A group that has some minimum standards of moderation and maintenance/upgrade management plan and just evenly distribute the load as people arrive.
Then as a second phase make it easy to transfer, that way at the point the user gets comfortable they can easily swap to a better* “home” for those that care, for those that don’t, make the server choice be virtually invisible.
I’m guessing you meant this sarcastically, but you may have been right for the wrong reasons. Look at this graph, by the metric of the way the fediverse works that is a failure. Apple and Google are massively dominant because people don’t want to think about it and most just go with their phone os maker who makes them create one when setting it up, and there is no fediverse server equivalent to that.
It’s just that they buy iPhones, and they want a total no-brainer, like, a phone that’s fully set up and ready to use without them having to do anything because it, like, totally confuzzles them 'n stuff. So whichever friendly salesperson sells them their phone also sets everything up for them. Including an e-mail account because they need one for their Apple account, but they don’t know if they’ve got one.
If they buy an Android phone, it’s the same, only that they get a Gmail account if they don’t happen to already have one.
Exactly why most Germans only had a @t-online.de address back in the day. The only exceptions were those who needed an e-mail account before they had their own home and their own landline connection.
I mean, I hear you (we’re both here after all), but honestly, I think this is a bad take and approach (if getting more users is a goal.
It’s not the 90s anymore. And even email services are given to you by your employer or selected from the closest big brand provider (Google etc).
All of which is a far cry from “nerdygardeners.io” administered by some rando anonymous account you’ve never heard of before.
For mainstream success, the instances thing was dead on arrival. Just was and is. Which is fine, the Fedi can be and arguably should be something else.
IMO the success of BlueSky is good for the Fedi. It can take the “let’s be the next mainstream thing” monkey off of its back and just be itself.
IMO the success of BlueSky is good for the Fedi. It can take the “let’s be the next mainstream thing” monkey off of its back and just be itself.
Plus, it keeps the obnoxious “But muh follower count” fame whores and the majority of the “Why can’t this be exactly like Twitter, I want a total Twitter clone” dumb-dumbs out. They’d ruin Fediverse culture even more than the second migration wave two years ago which was so massive that those who fled back then only encountered each other on Mastodon and hardly anyone who had been in the Fediverse before then.
But hardly anyone in the Fediverse, next to no-one on Mastodon and literally no-one outside the Fediverse knows that Misskey exists. Not outside of Japan anyway. Or any of the Forkeys, for that matter (if you’re a Westerner and neither an otaku nor a weeb, Iceshrimp or Sharkey may suit you better).
For more Mastodon users than not, the Fediverse = Mastodon. And outside the Fediverse, hardly anyone has even heard of the Fediverse.
As long as the fediverse has a barrier to entry for most people of mandating choosing a server first, it will never become the mainstream choice.
joinmastodon.org (the ‘official’ way to get join mastodon), has a default server for its join button. To me this looks very similar to the default server that appears when you try to create a bluesky account. So… I guess that’s not a barrier after all.
Yeah, they’ve implemented this a while ago, this year IIRC. People are on old information bashing Mastodon.
It actually doesn’t.
Install the official Mastodon app on your phone, launch it, scroll past the instance selection box that railroads you to mastodon.social anyway, and it’s no more complicated than Twitter. It’s just that nobody knows that.
Fun fact: The official Bluesky app has a selection box for a PDS, too. It’s no more and no less complicated than the official Mastodon app. Nobody knows that either.
Granted, of course, if you let yourself be railroaded, the place where you land in the Fediverse won’t be the bee’s knees, and you won’t know that there are not only better Mastodon instances (or more Mastodon instances in the first place), but also better server applications than Mastodon (or anything else than Mastodon in the Fediverse in the first place). But hey, it’s easy-peasy.
So what, should we have a website where you push a button and it sends you to a random instance to sign up?
Just imagine the surprise when a new user is placed in hexbear or one of the porn servers.
Then it was fate and they should just accept it.
Sorting Hat for Lemmy?
Hey… that just gave me a small idea… what if we made a “flock” or “herd” of Mastodon servers? The group of servers would all federate with each other, have the same block and allow lists, moderation policy and teams spread throughout them.
When you make an account you can be assigned a random instance name within the flock. If your instance goes down you could still possibly log in using other servers? Main benefit would be spreading server costs and maintenance effort and de-centralized operating, but still keep a centralized feel to it?
Honestly that’s probably the best sort of solution. A group that has some minimum standards of moderation and maintenance/upgrade management plan and just evenly distribute the load as people arrive.
Then as a second phase make it easy to transfer, that way at the point the user gets comfortable they can easily swap to a better* “home” for those that care, for those that don’t, make the server choice be virtually invisible.
Yeah, things requiring choosing a instance like, say, email, are doomed to fail
I’m guessing you meant this sarcastically, but you may have been right for the wrong reasons. Look at this graph, by the metric of the way the fediverse works that is a failure. Apple and Google are massively dominant because people don’t want to think about it and most just go with their phone os maker who makes them create one when setting it up, and there is no fediverse server equivalent to that.
Still, this chart looks like it’s actually counting phone apps rather than providers. Google doesn’t have two separate e-mail services AFAIK.
Wow, I wouldn’t have thought that Apple Mail is more popular than Gmail.
Nobody really actively chooses Apple Mail.
It’s just that they buy iPhones, and they want a total no-brainer, like, a phone that’s fully set up and ready to use without them having to do anything because it, like, totally confuzzles them 'n stuff. So whichever friendly salesperson sells them their phone also sets everything up for them. Including an e-mail account because they need one for their Apple account, but they don’t know if they’ve got one.
If they buy an Android phone, it’s the same, only that they get a Gmail account if they don’t happen to already have one.
At least in the early days of email before gmail, hotmail, or yahoo, you would get assigned an email from your work, university, or ISP.
Exactly why most Germans only had a @t-online.de address back in the day. The only exceptions were those who needed an e-mail account before they had their own home and their own landline connection.
I mean, I hear you (we’re both here after all), but honestly, I think this is a bad take and approach (if getting more users is a goal.
It’s not the 90s anymore. And even email services are given to you by your employer or selected from the closest big brand provider (Google etc).
All of which is a far cry from “nerdygardeners.io” administered by some rando anonymous account you’ve never heard of before.
For mainstream success, the instances thing was dead on arrival. Just was and is. Which is fine, the Fedi can be and arguably should be something else.
IMO the success of BlueSky is good for the Fedi. It can take the “let’s be the next mainstream thing” monkey off of its back and just be itself.
Plus, it keeps the obnoxious “But muh follower count” fame whores and the majority of the “Why can’t this be exactly like Twitter, I want a total Twitter clone” dumb-dumbs out. They’d ruin Fediverse culture even more than the second migration wave two years ago which was so massive that those who fled back then only encountered each other on Mastodon and hardly anyone who had been in the Fediverse before then.
Yeah, most people wants an easy migration. If the interface was nearly identical to Twitter, there’d be a flood.
Misskey has a more similar UI to Twitter, and it can’t even get noticed by fediverse users.
But hardly anyone in the Fediverse, next to no-one on Mastodon and literally no-one outside the Fediverse knows that Misskey exists. Not outside of Japan anyway. Or any of the Forkeys, for that matter (if you’re a Westerner and neither an otaku nor a weeb, Iceshrimp or Sharkey may suit you better).
For more Mastodon users than not, the Fediverse = Mastodon. And outside the Fediverse, hardly anyone has even heard of the Fediverse.