[edavis]

It wasn't hard for me because I grokked what I was doing, but for a lot of people they've never had to make a decision like that before. Especially so early in an onboarding process. And they get caught up trying to decide if they should join the instance for web developers or the one for cat lovers, because both interests are important to them. It turns people off to the idea of federated social media.

I'm going to push back on the migrating being a challenge even for Bluesky if an instance vanishes. If nothing else, you do not need your old host ("PDS" in atproto parlance) to cooperate — or even be online — if you wish to migrate in Bluesky. With a local copy of your data, you can send your social graph to a new host with ease and be right back in business.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

What do I think? I think it turns them off because people (possibly yourself included) say that they should intimidated and confused by this, rather than encouraging them to make what is actually, for almost everyone, a rather simple and inconsequential choice.

[edavis]

I don't think they should be intimidated, I'm just saying they are: https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when...

But I wouldn't say it's a fully inconsequential choice, either. Your instance and how it's situated in the wider fediverse does matter to some degree. Not having a full view of the network, missing meaningful replies, at the mercy of some admin #fediblock drama, etc.

Or maybe you finally find a good instance but your admin dislikes Meta so you're defederated from threads.net now. That's a bummer.

[wkat4242]

> Or maybe you finally find a good instance but your admin dislikes Meta so you're defederated from threads.net now. That's a bummer.

If you don't agree with your admin's choices on such important matters, your instance is not a good one for you.

The differentiation between instances, the way each can have their own community with its own morals is a strength, not a weakness. As the fediverse gets bigger, the bigger platforms will diversify more and have more of their own identity. For example beehaw, it's not really a Lemmy instance with some policies configured, it's beehaw. As the fediverse gets bigger, instances will develop their own identities more and it will be easier to choose.

And gab, for the cesspool it is, you can't deny it's got its own identity. Of course it's one that almost nobody wants to federate with but that's their right too. Freedom of speech doesn't mean everyone has to listen to you. The system works as intended.

The thing is, if you're aligned with your platform you probably agree with most of the choices your admin made. If not you can just pick another one.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I don't disagree with any of the stuff in the linked post (and I've seen it before).

But I think that's all about a totally different problem: people not finding the culture they want on Mastodon.

[wkat4242]

> It wasn't hard for me because I grokked what I was doing, but for a lot of people they've never had to make a decision like that before.

They've picked an email provider. They've picked a mobile phone provider. They've picked their car insurance. They pick what bars to socialise at. Yes people have no issues making choices like this at all.

[apitman]

> They've picked an email provider

Not likely. The world picked gmail for them

[wkat4242]

In the US maybe? Here there's still a lot of diversity. People using their provider's email service. People using local ones like gmx in Germany. Hotmail, live and outlook.com. Even some non techies using their own domain (and of course all the techies do). Most people with their own business use that domain. Proton seems to be a rising star too.

Gmail is the biggest but not the only one by far. The privacy movement getting more traction here than in the US might be playing into that too.

[vidarh]

Even the top 5 - never mind - Gmail - of e-mail providers just about cracks half of all e-mail users depending on which datasets your trust.