#Mastodon certainly has the functionality to replace #Twitter but from the average mainstream user's perspective, understanding the ideas behind federation of services, selecting an instance etc are not only irrelevant, but tedious TMI. Not everyone values these things. For most of Twitter, they want a single URL, a login and a password they have to enter once.
@darryl ...which is exactly what they get.
Nobody has to log into different websites to access their email, yet email is essentially a federated service.
The people who find email understandable and Mastodon baffling simply don't want to understand it.
@LouisIngenthron You've made my point for me because email is a great example of something that's had many years of private companies putting money into making access to it easier to access (for better or for worse). See gmail, Hey, ProtonMail etc.
You can definitely say they "don't want to understand it" but in as far as the goal is widespread adoption, they shouldn't have to, should they? If I asked my aunt what SMTP server she is using, she has no idea, but she sure can send me 20 ancient memes about Jesus every day.
@darryl You really think your aunt can't tell if she's using Gmail or Yahoo?
I don't know which fork of the masto server I'm on either. I only know the address and branding of the provider... which the vast majority of email users know too.
@darryl If I asked you the question "What page do I go on to get on email?", how would you answer that?
@darryl Then my answer to your previous question would be "mastodon.social".
Both answers would be equally as correct.
@darryl Also, I don't use gmail, so you'd be wrong.
@LouisIngenthron But that's easy for you and I because we know better. For "average user" who has no understanding or interest in decentralization, they need the path to least resistance. And yes, that brings us back to a centralized onboarding experience.
@darryl Not necessarily. For most of the history of the internet, the path of least resistance for email was through your ISP, which was why all our grandmas had addresses ending with centurylink or sbcglobal. And that was totally decentralized. And they got it.
Really, the only difference between email and mastodon, at this point, is the adoption rate.
@LouisIngenthron If I asked you the question "What page do I go to to get on Mastodon?" -- what would your answer be?
Right now there is no simple answer aside from pointing them at the major instances (which is how most people are migrating over). That's contrary to the whole idea of decentralization though.
The best implementation I've seen is that site that asks you some simple questions and then points you at a short list of potential instances to choose from. I think that exact process needs a centralized landing page.