I’m not saying it’s perfect (and I’m also on Bluesky now like almost everyone else I know) but I find the ‘choosing an instance is a barrier to Mastodon adoption’ argument bizarre given everyone who has a personal email account has had to make the exac...
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I’m not saying it’s perfect (and I’m also on Bluesky now like almost everyone else I know) but I find the ‘choosing an instance is a barrier to Mastodon adoption’ argument bizarre given everyone who has a personal email account has had to make the exact same decision at least once before
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@ryantownsend to be fair each server is run by **who knows**(?) and requires choosing a username & vanity url
I’ve had people tell me that couldn’t figure out how to start — so they didn’t
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@benschwarz fair that there’s a lack of Big Tech instances but when email was gaining mass adoption, servers were also run by fairly unknown entities.
I’m not sure what you mean about vanity URL?
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> each server is run by **who knows**
sure, and that's the same as an email domain or a blog or any other internet service/resource that standard users take for granted:
functionally speaking, we're looking at a similar state for high-level options:
```pseudo.code
case option:is masto-instance //
is email-domain //
is personal-website //show expression(matrix::row):
| type | owned | managed
| 01 | corporate | corporate
| 02 | corporate | community
| 03 | community | community
| 04 | person | community
| 05 | person | person
| 06 | other | other
``` -
@winterschon @ryantownsend I get what the options are and agree it’s somewhat similar to choosing a free email.
However, free email providers (particularly in the earlier days), disappeared overnight in a lot of cases.
These days, masto servers either allow (or don’t) abusive behavior. What if your server admin is a massive asshole?
With choice comes catharsis. Ownership aside, masto is harder to start with than bsky and threads.
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@ryantownsend vanity URL, in our case front-end.social and webperf.social
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@benschwarz ah ok, I thought you meant something different to choosing an instance.
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@benschwarz @winterschon ‘what if your server admin is an asshole?’ still applies to choosing any other social network, the choice is just limited to Musk/Zuckerberg/Dorsey.
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@benschwarz @winterschon anyway, all I’m saying is it literally takes 60 seconds to explain to non-techies: “it works like email: you choose where your profile lives, which forms part of your username, but you can interact with anyone. If you’re not fussy, use one of the big generic instances, otherwise find one in your industry/hobby area, and (if you care to) have a quick read their policies”… anyone who cares for the latter would similarly need to read up on BSky/Threads/X’s policies anyway.
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@ryantownsend @winterschon aye, but I disagree. Six months ago my friend told me she wasn’t sure what server to choose and didn’t end up getting an account. She asked me about it again overnight. Despite helping, it was still too hard.
I know corps are overall probably worse, but people don’t have a problem with that
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@ryantownsend Back when email was new and unfamiliar, you didn't choose. You just got given a mailbox by your university (which you would use as you're personal address, even if technically it wasn't), or your ISP.
By the time that independent email providers were really taking off, you had clear, concrete reasons for your choice, such as price (Hotmail), brand recognition (Yahoo!), or features (GMail). But Mastodon servers all look kind-of the same, so how do you select one?
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@mavit go with a big generic one (e.g. mastodon.social) or, if you want to identify as part of a community, search for the most appropriate and (if you care to) read over their moderation policies that are publicly visible. Done.
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@benschwarz @winterschon does she have some niche moderation requirements because if not, why can’t she just use mastodon.social?
