> But it is too much to ask of the general public to wade through many niche servers they won't understand, e.g. the one for BSD fans
What is the general public though ?
Most people have niche interests. Grand parents can go fishing, and registering to a fishing centric server could be great for them.
The network I like the most is a place for people to show their drawings. It’s as niche as you can get, I don’t know if these people fit your “general public” label, but they’re not “techies”, they just like to draw.
In that sense I think it doesn’t need to be an ocean of content, small ponds are fine as long as they are discoverable, and most niche communities are good at sharing these kind of technical resources.
> Most people have niche interests. Grand parents can go fishing, and registering to a fishing centric server could be great for them.
That sounds great in theory, but (1) I have a dozen different niche interests, and there's not going to be one instance with even half of them, and (2) AFAICT there is no "fishing centric server", and even the "Mastodon instances wizard" doesn't provide a way to search for them -- it's only about whether I want to allow porn/spam/ads.
Are my grandparents supposed to start their own Mastodon instance, just so they can hang with their fishing buddies online? Am I supposed to get accounts on 10 different instances, one for each of my interests?
I just don't see how this is supposed to work. Everything I read about Mastodon in the abstract is great, and then as soon as it gets into any specifics it falls down.
What is the general public though ?
Most people have niche interests. Grand parents can go fishing, and registering to a fishing centric server could be great for them.
The network I like the most is a place for people to show their drawings. It’s as niche as you can get, I don’t know if these people fit your “general public” label, but they’re not “techies”, they just like to draw.
In that sense I think it doesn’t need to be an ocean of content, small ponds are fine as long as they are discoverable, and most niche communities are good at sharing these kind of technical resources.