[suramya_tomar]

Not sure if I am missing something, but this is something I can do without any extra extensions installed? Out of the 27 accounts I am currently following, 20 are accounts from other Mastodon instances...

I do have to search for the account on my local instance to start following them instead of being able to click follow right there, but that is a minor annoyance

[TobTobXX]

It is solving exactly that minor annoyance you mentioned.

[suramya_tomar]

Ah... fair enough. For me the annoyance is minor enough that I wouldn't be installing an extension that gets access to all the sites that I browse, but I get that for others it might worth it.

From the outside, it seems like an easy problem to solve but with all the multiple domains and the way federation itself works there is no quick/easy fix that doesn't bring other assorted problems into play

[maxerickson]

Right, it appears this extension is aimed at the minor annoyance.

[xvilka]

It will never gain significant popularity with UX failures like this.

[rektide]

This seems reductionist & rejectionist to me. If people have a reason to care, little impedances like this are not going to stop things.

In general this high judgementalism really should have a tiny smidge of humility & respect in it. That lacks. You could improve.

[xypage]

I disagree, it's little frictions like this that make it hard for newcomers to take the stage even when on paper they're better than established competitors. This is hackernews so obviously our population is going to be less likely to be significantly hampered by this, but I'm telling you for a fact that everyone in my family that checked out mastodon struggled to follow people that were on different instances, texted/emailed me about why they couldn't login on that instance, and have since stopped using it. Now I'm not sure if that's the only reason, but they all reached out to me about it and few about anything else, so it's definitely harmful for the ecosystem.

[rektide]

One of the things Tim O'Reilly used to say is, follow the alpha geeks.

If tech is interesting & compelling & there are some people there already doing the thing, people will overcome enormous barriers & learn lots to come participate.

Few of these systems are truly self apparent- all of them require enormous learning & training & sociation. But we dont see that because we so happen to have been using the same tech for a decade or two now, more or less. The "availability heuristic" tells us what we know is easy, and what we dont know is hard. This can deceieve.

Are Mastadon or the other activitypub systems really hard? Honestly I quite doubt it. But we are improving & making the experiences better over time. And more so, just as you were served as an in the know peer to bridge the Availabity Hueristic gap, the community grows & is better able to bring this knowledge to those who only learned how to exist inside the Walled Gardens.

[madeofpalk]

Does Hacker News have 'significant popularity'?

[rieTohgh6]

No, but it doesn't need one. Or looking at it in at other way - as long as it is better than Slashdot and Reddit people will keep coming anyway - and that bar is freaking low.

[TylerE]

Not really.

[Gravityloss]

Odd, I can just click follow, on hachyderm.io even if the followee is on mastodon.social. No annoyances.

[iamevn]

I'm betting you're clicking the follow button on the profile at hachyderm.io/@[e-mail] and not mastodon.social/@user