Nope but the general use is going to be overwhelmed by the idea of instances.
I’m a techie and I had to spend a good amount of time reading about how it all works before I felt comfortable joining here. So the average user would probably just give up and use something else.
The email comparison is definitely the best one I’ve seen so far but I still don’t think it’ll stick with people.
I’m pretty dumb when it comes to digital architecture/infrastructure and I didn’t really have an issue with Lemmy/Kbin, I think it comes down a lot to how you explain it.
Maybe ISPs is an okay comparison? Most of us are on different ISPs but we access the same internet.
I think you make a good point but I think it’s due to terminology. If you wanted an email address you wouldn’t go to joinemail.com and look at a list of email instances. It would be bewildering.
It’s worth remembering that most users don’t care how something works under the hood.
So I think Mastodon and Lemmy etc should look at how they onboard new users. So you could replace Instance with Community. Something like, “To join Mastodon you sign up with a community that has similar interests to you but you can still see and interact with other communities. Here’s a list of communities”
(I know Lemmy uses community to mean something more like a sub-Reddit)
There’s also some issues that need addressing around admins (trigger happy defederation, poor communication with other admins, not keeping the instance up to date, shutting down unexpectedly). Really there needs to be an a Council elected from Admins that can sort these things.
What do you mean by this? Do instances on Mastodon work differently?
Nope but the general use is going to be overwhelmed by the idea of instances.
I’m a techie and I had to spend a good amount of time reading about how it all works before I felt comfortable joining here. So the average user would probably just give up and use something else.
The email comparison is definitely the best one I’ve seen so far but I still don’t think it’ll stick with people.
I’m pretty dumb when it comes to digital architecture/infrastructure and I didn’t really have an issue with Lemmy/Kbin, I think it comes down a lot to how you explain it.
Maybe ISPs is an okay comparison? Most of us are on different ISPs but we access the same internet.
It’s probably more productive to just ignore the technical details. Half the country seems to believe they’re buying “wi-fi” nowadays.
Just stick with “try Mastodon” or “try Lemmy” and let the non-technical folk build whatever mental model suits them best.
I think you make a good point but I think it’s due to terminology. If you wanted an email address you wouldn’t go to joinemail.com and look at a list of email instances. It would be bewildering.
It’s worth remembering that most users don’t care how something works under the hood.
So I think Mastodon and Lemmy etc should look at how they onboard new users. So you could replace Instance with Community. Something like, “To join Mastodon you sign up with a community that has similar interests to you but you can still see and interact with other communities. Here’s a list of communities”
(I know Lemmy uses community to mean something more like a sub-Reddit)
There’s also some issues that need addressing around admins (trigger happy defederation, poor communication with other admins, not keeping the instance up to date, shutting down unexpectedly). Really there needs to be an a Council elected from Admins that can sort these things.