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> I keep thinking "oh this time people will realize why federation is important." On the flip side-- what if it were the case that Mastodon's onboarding, serve

> I keep thinking "oh this time people will realize why federation is important." On the flip side-- what if it were the case that Mastodon's onboarding, server setup, maintenance, moderation options, and overall UX are so poor that it cannot gain traction, even when a history of four "major events" would otherwise have delivered it a massive userbase by now? Honestly, even if the interface was constrained to a HN aesthetic, if a social media alternative were as fast as git and as easy to install and get up and running, I'd use it in a heartbeat.

gman83 5y ago
The fact that before you can join Mastodon, you first have to choose what server you're going to host your account on is going to turn off 90% of people right there. They should have a default instance you can join from the front page and make it an option to join another.
- usrn 5y ago
  You have to do that with Email too though
- egypturnash 5y ago
  The two instances run by the dev team seem to be operating as that to no small extent. They’re super hammered right now. It’s still a confusing process though. Some kind of “find your friends” might help, if we could get people to participate in a big database of “this is my Twitter and this is/are my Mastodon(s)”. Ideally this would be on joinmastodon.org along with the instance picker.
  - DrewADesign 5y ago
    > Some kind of “find your friends” might help While that’s vaguely a step in the right direction, it’s not even in the ballpark of how much friction needs to be removed to get non-nerd adoption. The general populace would stop using social media before they used any of the current federated offerings. Selling non-technical people on the tech when it’s less fun, harder to reason about, and more annoying is a non-starter. The only design that would stand a chance would start with the absolute optimal user onboarding and usage path and begrudgingly degrade when absolutely technically necessary. That’s what the commercial offerings will do, and most people are fine with compromising their privacy and control of their data feed. No spoonful of sugar, no medicine no matter how beneficial.
    - trenchgun 5y ago
      Also there is no recommendation algorithm, so it's very hard to find people. And there is not way to automatically follow lists of people either, so I cant even use curators. That is especially insane, given that there are curators who create lists of interesting people, you just have to click one by one to follow...
      - zaarn 5y ago
        There is a recommendation algorithm in the newest versions; your instance has an explore tab that shows popular hashtags, posts and accounts, plus popular articles shared in many tweets. The instance admin has to greenlight them on a case-by-case basis (though you can greenlight an entire website if you want and it amounts to 10 minutes of work a day). The algorithm is entirely based on "how many users did use this hashtag/share the post/share the URL/interact with account in the past week".
- NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
  99.9% We on HN are not a good measure of normal users. Most people have never even heard of mastodon.
  - formerkrogemp 5y ago
    Anecdotally when I ask people about it, including the "youth," only a few people have heard of mastodon.
- bitcuration 5y ago
  Well said, the user experience is subpar and that's the end of it unless those enthusiastic.
- trenchgun 5y ago
  That is not the biggest issue. I joined to some instance just fine. The problems start after that. UX is laggy, buggy and unintuitive. Algorithms don't help to find people to follow. People curate some lists of people to follow, but there is no way to automatically follow the whole list. Interaction between instances should work in theory, but in practice it's very very clunky.

gman83 5y ago

The fact that before you can join Mastodon, you first have to choose what server you're going to host your account on is going to turn off 90% of people right there. They should have a default instance you can join from the front page and make it an option to join another.

usrn 5y ago
You have to do that with Email too though
egypturnash 5y ago
The two instances run by the dev team seem to be operating as that to no small extent. They’re super hammered right now. It’s still a confusing process though. Some kind of “find your friends” might help, if we could get people to participate in a big database of “this is my Twitter and this is/are my Mastodon(s)”. Ideally this would be on joinmastodon.org along with the instance picker.
- DrewADesign 5y ago
  > Some kind of “find your friends” might help While that’s vaguely a step in the right direction, it’s not even in the ballpark of how much friction needs to be removed to get non-nerd adoption. The general populace would stop using social media before they used any of the current federated offerings. Selling non-technical people on the tech when it’s less fun, harder to reason about, and more annoying is a non-starter. The only design that would stand a chance would start with the absolute optimal user onboarding and usage path and begrudgingly degrade when absolutely technically necessary. That’s what the commercial offerings will do, and most people are fine with compromising their privacy and control of their data feed. No spoonful of sugar, no medicine no matter how beneficial.
  - trenchgun 5y ago
    Also there is no recommendation algorithm, so it's very hard to find people. And there is not way to automatically follow lists of people either, so I cant even use curators. That is especially insane, given that there are curators who create lists of interesting people, you just have to click one by one to follow...
    - zaarn 5y ago
      There is a recommendation algorithm in the newest versions; your instance has an explore tab that shows popular hashtags, posts and accounts, plus popular articles shared in many tweets. The instance admin has to greenlight them on a case-by-case basis (though you can greenlight an entire website if you want and it amounts to 10 minutes of work a day). The algorithm is entirely based on "how many users did use this hashtag/share the post/share the URL/interact with account in the past week".
NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
99.9% We on HN are not a good measure of normal users. Most people have never even heard of mastodon.
- formerkrogemp 5y ago
  Anecdotally when I ask people about it, including the "youth," only a few people have heard of mastodon.
bitcuration 5y ago
Well said, the user experience is subpar and that's the end of it unless those enthusiastic.
trenchgun 5y ago
That is not the biggest issue. I joined to some instance just fine. The problems start after that. UX is laggy, buggy and unintuitive. Algorithms don't help to find people to follow. People curate some lists of people to follow, but there is no way to automatically follow the whole list. Interaction between instances should work in theory, but in practice it's very very clunky.