this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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Mastodon
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Exactly. I'm a programmer and I do server administration on a small scale, but when I went to sign up for Mastodon my first reaction was, "How the hell am I supposed to know what instance I want my account to be on?" and I left. After a couple of weeks of absorbing random bits of information about how federation works I went back and completed the account creation process, but I really doubt that the average user who just wants to sign up for a service and use it is going to get past that step.
Apps need to automatically assign users randomly to one of the non-controversial general instances, and letting them change it if they want.
Lemmy and other fediverse clients need to do this too imo
I agree. The information should be easily available if they are interested, but end users shouldn't be required to know about the underlying mechanics of the fediverse simply in order to create an account and browse.
Great thing about lemmy and most of the apps being open source is we users can add those features in ourselves. I'm sure they will be later, the fediverse is only now starting to grow after all.
Hmm, maybe if an app's creator hosted their own instance just for accounts (i.e. with no posts of its own). That way, a new user can download an app, set up an account on that app's dedicated accounts server, and start browsing all the other instances from there.
I really don't understand what's so difficult about picking an instance you like. Find an instance- Like the content? Rules look okay to you? Boom, done.