Joining a Mastodon server is just as simple as signing up to Facebook. The difference is that no single Mastodon instance has centralized control over their users; you always get the option of signing up elsewhere, or using your own instance.
This is what I would have thought, but I've heard from more than one friend who was frustrated by having to choose an instance in the first place. What makes one better or worse than another? What if I choose wrong? What if I need to move?
This isn't difficult, per se, but it's not as easy as signing up for Twitter for the simple dumb reason that you don't need to make that choice. And the concerns about "wrong choices" aren't entirely unfounded; the first Mastodon instance I signed up for was effectively abandoned by its sysadmin. The decentralization still makes it hard to search for new users to follow compared to Twitter (checking right this moment, when I click on someone I follow to see who they follow, it only shows me people they follow on the same instance); depending on the Mastodon client I'm using, it can actually be a little hard to follow someone even when I find them if they're not on the same instance I am. Again, technically none of this is super difficult, but for a user who isn't philosophically committed to the fediverse, tiny little frustrations start to add up quickly.
Most public mastodon instances usually have an about page that describes what their intended audience is. You can also look through the public timeline to see what users are saying first before signing up. If you aren't sure, pick a larger general instance.
Despite all that, in my opinion you'll probably get more mileage out of joining an instance run by someone you know and trust.
Well, you can see how that's a bit of a bigger ask than "go to Twitter.com and click SIGN UP," right? :)
People really, really want to argue that decentralization of social networks doesn't make things harder, but eventually the defense always shifts to "well, you have to be willing to jump through a few hoops if you believe in the advantages of a decentralized/indie internet, which you totally should," because the truth is that the decentralized way does make things harder. Personally, I do believe in the advantages of the IndieWeb, and I do think it's worth jumping through those hoops. I just think we need to acknowledge those hoops exist, and always be thinking about ways we can reduce the friction for people who say "I like all those ideas in theory, but in practice it's too frustrating."
It’s the “signing up elsewhere or using your own instance” that’s the problem. You’re joining a Mastodon server and if you want to go to another server you have to actually move things. It takes actual effort.
It seems like the Mastodon developers look at email and think “if it works for email it’ll work here” and don’t understand that people deal with email because they have to, not because they want to. I don’t want to have to change my email address when I switch providers and I don’t want to have to move all my stuff if my favorite Mastodon server decides to shut down.
That’s not a solution that’s just another problem. It’s bad user experience.
> and if you want to go to another server you have to actually move things. It takes actual effort.
Not sure how that's worse than something like Facebook, where you literally don't get that option. If you want your asserted identity to be reasonably secure and easy to assess for other users, you have to find a trusted host or do your own hosting; that's no different from any other service.
This is what I’m talking about with developers not understanding users. I even said “users don’t care what’s behind the scenes”. Any normal user who is looking to leave Facebook wants Facebook The Product but not Facebook The Company. They don’t care about hosting or asserting identity. They don’t want options, they want a product.
People use email because it’s the best communication system existing. If someone doesn’t want to change his address he creates his own self-hosted mail server. Or just use his own domain name when using email service with thord party email providers. Email system is amazing, the issues with ux are in fact minimal, almost non-existent.
Even if self-hosted email was easy, I don't find it to be a great idea.
I ran my own for a while using mail-in-a-box but ended up moving to fastmail because I didn't trust myself to maintain the setup. I need my email system to just work and that's likely the same for the majority of people.
(I validated that lack of trust in myself even with fastmail by not realizing for almost 3 days that I let my domain expire, thus causing emails to bounce with no way of me knowing that was happening)
Ok so make mastodon as easy as gmail. I can use Gmail.com or my own domain. Let me have same flexibility with my internet identity. I wish the USPS had gotten into the official Internet identity game. One place to receive legal emails, store my private keys, public keys etc. protected by law.
Too bad spammers and big corps broke that one as well. Maybe if it worked as a publush subscribe system (MQTT) instead where the sender was responsible for storing and distributing content, then the spam problem would be somewhat fixed?
