[dryanau]

So I clicked "sign up" and it suggested checking if there might be another instance best suited to my needs, so I followed the proposed link to https://join-lemmy.org/ and got the "join a server"/"run a server" option. After clicking "join a server" and scrolling the list of half added descriptions I just left because it felt like I was supposed to be making a choice about the community I want to join before even checking the damn thing out. Reddit is the opposite, just sign up and explore the subreddits and pick the ones you like. If Lemmy is anything like that, it's not clear at all and my experience turned me away in the exact way the previous poster described. It felt like I had to pick the subreddit first with no idea what was inside. It sucks. It sucks bad and it won't win in its current state.

[nerdbert]

Exactly my experience and why I haven't signed up for Lemmy. I don't know what the hell any of those communities are and why/how I should pick one particular one as my home base or whatever, and not getting involved at all seemed like the easiest way forward.

I get the sense that there are a lot of competing visions for what Lemmy should be, and I am not interested enough to put myself in the middle of that.

There's probably an opportunity to start a modified instance that avoids all this identity stuff and hides the federation aspect as much as possible to make it look like a seamless unified community. That's something I, and I presume many others who were turned off by their first experience with it, might well join.

[glenstein]

Lemmy's sign up works just like reddit. It sounds like you were looking at the actual pop up box where the identical-to-reddit registration happens, but instead of completing it you clicked a link that brought you away.

So the thing you say you wanted, it was literally right there on your screen and you were looking at it.

[ParetoOptimal]

Plus even after doing the steps above you may find you get a 500 error on the email activation link like me.