@kissane Good quest, Erin. As you wrote, the sign-up process isn’t difficult. Choosing the instance based on governance and various other criteria a potential new member might have, however, is difficult. Been on the fediverse since 2019 and am on my third instance. Switches were because of instance size, governance (text in “about” and “server rules”), where the server is based, being a part of the Mastodon Covenant, languages allowed. A new user might not think about all those things, and more.