[camoufleur]

Discord borrowed the term from online gaming, as its initial target audience was gamers.

Models like 'subreddit,' 'Discord server,' and 'Facebook group' are simple to grasp because they are stand-ins for physical spaces. Posts are made or read in these specific communal contexts.

To my understanding, Mastodon instances don't fit this model. The most common analogy I see is an email provider, but the mental model most email users operate with is sending a letter to another person. It's not clear what the comparison means beyond 'you can sign up on any instance and people on other instances can see your posts,' which is only part of the story, only partially true, and way too technical.

For Mastodon to catch on there needs to be an intuitive metaphor. It cannot be 'Twitter but X' or 'email but Y'. Twitter itself has the 'town square' metaphor. What is Mastodon?

[2Gkashmiri]

as i wrote earlier, your "instance" is your "home" while the federated network is your neighbourhood. you communicate with members of your home like @john but with your neighbours as @john@neighour . you can ask your home "manager" to block someone is someone is doing something naughty and if a neighbour is doing something naughty, you can ask your "manager" to block their access to you home, like closing your own blinds. if the offending neighbour gets really loud, your "manager" can have a restraining order banning them from coming to your property.

you can talk to your home members, your immediate neighbours, your neighbours on the other side of the city or the state, whatever....

does that make some sense?

[camoufleur]

Yes, that's a fine start.

However to me 'home' implies either some level of authority/ownership or a relationship with an owner. From my understanding it's much more difficult to run a Mastodon instance than a Discord server so most new users are encouraged to join the big instances. Without a connection to their 'home,' I think the metaphor breaks down. It seems for most people the choice is between joining a general purpose instance or a 'clique' instance focused on a particular identity or subculture.

People don't want formal allegiances to subreddits, Discord servers, or email providers; these are just the spaces they visit and tools they use. And why should I tell a home manager to block someone when I can block them myself?