Comment by fsflover
12 hours ago
> Are you on Instagram?
> Are you on Mastodon?
In both cases, you have to share the user handle, which is just a bit longer in the latter case.
> what happens if I pick wrong?
You move to another server.
> Do I have to pick the same server my friend has?
No.
You and I both know the answers to those questions; my point is that the average non-technical user does not and this presents significant extra friction that Instagram doesn't have.
(this kind of attitude of asserting technical superiority and blaming non-tech users for not understanding it and not willing to bother figuring it out is exactly why the free/libre software movement achieved zero impact with non-technical users; you have to meet your users where they are... or a competitor will happily do so.)
If you're not being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, you are welcome to search my username and "mastodon"/"fediverse" to see my thoughts on it in more detail and why it will never be a serious competitor to mainstream social media platforms. Happy to engage with serious arguments.
To me it just looks like some kind of fear of a new thing, because technically there is nothing really complicated about Mastodon. Still, I do understand that switching to a new platform corresponds to some non-negligible effort and one would have to substantiate it with sufficient benefits. We, technical people, should not feel superior but explain that the benefits are stronger than the downsides and switching is worth it in the long term, especially due to the ongoing enshittification of all popular for-profit platform managed by megacorps.