[chefandy]

Elk.zone looks cool and is definitely a nice face for Mastodon-- glad to know about it!

However, the disconnect between non-technical users and what Mastodon offers is far deeper than the timeline layout and interactions. If users must practically understand how to negotiate federation to satisfy their most basic requirement-- nearly effortlessly finding and interacting with their friends, family and other sources within the interface-- then it's a non-starter for that crowd.

Most developers seem not to realize a) how much more resistance dealing with the practical complexity of federation adds for non-technical users trying to do what they want to do, and b) how little resistance those users will tolerate to achieve their goals when they have free options. As it stands, the cost/benefit ratio to switching to Mastodon is not even in the ballpark of what it needs to be for nearly any social media user. Mastodon's huge active user base fluctuation 5-10 mos ago comprises about half a percent of Twitter's active monthly user base, which entirely leaves out Facebook, Instagram, Etc... and most of Mastodon's new ex-twitter users left.