this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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[–] realcaseyrollins@social.freetalklive.com 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

@legion @TendieMaster69 Are you onboarding using the browser or using the official #Mastodon app? Onboarding online is a lot more understandable than onboarding in the app IIRC

[–] legion@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In the browser. It's not confusing to me, but I'm a software developer. Millions of Twitter users aren't going to make it past the server selection step. And many that do are going to be confused when they click to Follow someone and get a weird popup (because that someone is on a different Mastodon instance) instead of instantly following the person.

It's nowhere close to a smooth enough experience for the lion's share of Twitter users to transition over. I think people that are used to even slightly technical things vastly overestimate what the average end user is capable of handling. These are the people that ask for help to plug in an HDMI cable.

[–] itty53@vlemmy.net 2 points 1 year ago

I feel like the hurdles are kind of features. If your elderly parents can't figure out then they can't well flood it with trash. Reddit was the same way at first, oh so long ago. People weren't used to the format and users without any tech savvy were dissuaded from entry. That turned into a libertarian foundation. This time around the generations that are tech savvy aren't libertarians, they're progressives. So we're seeing a progressive foundation in the federation become established, and that's going to narrate the future culture here, just like libertarians narrated the culture of reddit for so long.

[–] realcaseyrollins@social.freetalklive.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@legion Hmm. I would challenge anyone to go to mstdn.social for example and show me the onboarding friction.

Signing up for an account on a #Mastodon instance is quite easy, if you're doing so through the browser and go directly to the instance you want to join

[–] sj_zero@social.fbxl.net 1 points 1 year ago

When people say getting onto mastodon is hard I assume they must mean setting up an instance because even if soapbox and rebased are easier to use, it's still just signing up for a website.

[–] TendieMaster69@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It was simple for me personally, but I guess I'm a more advanced internet enjoyer?

  1. went to https://joinmastodon.org/
  2. clicked "create account"
  3. went to c.im
  4. then to https://c.im/auth/sign_up
  5. accepted agreement
  6. created account
  7. became mastodon enjoyer
[–] dantheclamman@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I think people are intimidated by step 3. Don't ask me why, but for a certain type of web user, it's an absolute deal breaker for some reason.

[–] hazelnot@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Tbh it's capitalism. It teaches people to be afraid of choices, and to just take what the corporation is handing them. It's... disconcerting how pervasive this kind of convenience culture has become and what kind of effect it's having on people's lives

Fedi doesn't have an onboarding problem, people have a capitalism problem

[–] dantheclamman@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

that is an interesting point. when people are confronted with the choice of where to store their data, they just nope out

[–] neotecha@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I don't think it's explicitly an issue with capitalism itself (although capitalism does use it to it's advantage). Decision Paralysis is well-known, and i don't see why abolishing capitalism would make it universally easier to make uninformed decisions

Yea I understand that, it's a bit overwhelming to be presented with a shit ton of servers, there are around 79 general servers as of right now to choose from.

[–] GiantBasil@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, having to actually choose a place to go was the main impediment for meto create a mastodon account in the first place. I kept stalling and putting it off, once I did it iwas easy enough. I think a lot of people don't realise at first you can make other fedaration accounts with the same email and how easy it is.

Except I'm I was not a big twitter user in the first place, so I probably should have started with one of the niche feds first, like star trek or the art one, those would prompt me to interact more.

[–] renlok@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The onboarding for Masterson is the best of all the fediverse sites but I still think the average internet user would get confused.

@renlok What's the onboarding like for #Soapbox? It's been awhile since I've tried it.