[gemlog]

this. It doesn't matter one whit about the instance, except perhaps initially. Maybe. You choose who to read and follow and the instance doesn't matter. I already 'follow' about 80 like-minded geeks I'm interested to read each day and that's all I can keep up with. I never look at either the local timeline or the federated timeline: they are too much information; firehose. edit: and those 80-odd ppl are all over the planet on various instances in various languages.

[s_kilk]

> It doesn't matter one whit about the instance, except perhaps initially. Maybe. You choose who to read and follow and the instance doesn't matter.

Not in my experience. Mastodon doesn't really have any (good) cross-instance discovery mechanisms aside from just watching the global fire-hose, so your initial experience is formed by the other users on your instance. And the experience varies wildly from "This instance is very quiet" to "This instance is full of furries".

[gcb0]

sound just like email or twitter or facebook before everyone's parents were on it.

[mattmanser]

Is it not like an email server then? What happens when they decide shut down their mastodon server without warning?

[TuringTest]

People can learn about service providers after they've been using the service for a while, when they understand how it works and what value it provides; it is then a good time to decide whether they want to migrate to a more stable or close provider.

The sign-up form during the first experience with the service is not the point to educate the newcomer about those issues, beyond maybe a friendly reminder of who is the one providing service to them at that point.

The sign-up process should be streamlined to make sure users arrive to a server that provides a good experience based on their interest; not on educating them about the technicalities of the service.