If the fediverse is to be adopted by the masses, the onboarding experience needs to change. A new user can’t be presented with a choice of instances as part of signing up or at least the process of making the choice needs to dumbed down a lot. I don’t know how or if this can be solved, I just know as someone involved in app development and UX that the current experience won’t work.

My mother would not know how to handle this paragraph: “Lemmy.world is one node in a network of hundreds of Lemmy instances. Before you sign up here, take a moment to explore all the instances at https://lemmyverse.net. You may find an instance with a regional or topical emphasis that speaks to you! Don’t worry about being left out; Lemmy instances are interconnected so users from each instance can participate with communities on other instances.”

For mass adoption it needs to be so simple that even non-techie older people can get through it without feeling like they might be doing something wrong.

  • cRazi_man@lemm.eeEnglish
    4·
    5 months ago

    I’m pretty techie and I’ve been here for months. I still don’t fully understand why it matters and how a different instance would have changed my experience. The fediverse is so fragmented, it would be dumb to stick to one instance. My app is always set to browse “all”. Everyone commenting seems to be from different instances. I’m certainly not going to start reading about different instances at signup when it presents the fact that you will be able to access all instances anyway. I picked randomly from one of the most popular choices. This whole process of a selection of an instance sounded good to software engineers, and sure this is how the technology fits together…but these are “back end” issues that I (and other normies) don’t care about at all. Users do not want to get into the weeds of how the back end works and it is certainly off putting.

      • cRazi_man@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        5 months ago

        Where/how do I check or know what impact that has? I think this just further strengthens the point that Lemmy is not welcoming to normal users at all and is just for specialist nerds.

    • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
      English
      0·
      5 months ago

      Different instances that have a unique interest or theme will determine the type and feel of content in your local feed, and can have a tangible community as you recognize names from your instance. That’s the main difference.

      • concrete_baby@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        Unique interests can be already be self-curated by subscribing to certain communities. All apps have the subscribed feed. There’s no need for communities of a certain type to be on one instance.

        Edit: typo

  • rako@piefed.socialEnglish
    3·
    5 months ago

    I think everyone agrees that the fediverse experience is highly different from the centralized experience, but I disagree that the fediverse must necessarily hide what it is and reproduce such a centralized system.

    We’ve been fed the lie that tech is “easy” when it isn’t at all, but that is not a problem. Driving a 2 tons box around at hundreds of km/h takes some skill, some time to learn, but we don’t consider it too hard and skippable. I think we should put our efforts into simplifying the explanations, showing what it brings and what you lose, if we want more people to join (and I do)

          • anon6789@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            5 months ago

            What is wrong with apps? I get a lot of great features from the one I use that I don’t get with the web client.

            • multi-communities
            • user tagging
            • drafts
            • keyword blocking
            • themes
            • customizeable ui
            • etc
            • snooggums@lemmy.worldEnglish
              01·
              5 months ago

              Most of them space things out in ways I don’t like and I hate gestures because I do things accidentally all the time. I can keyword block througb ublock origjn, although I do understand it is easier in most apps.

              User tagging is the only feature I feel like I’m missing on default mobile lemmy.

              I have also hit app fatigue. Just fucking sick to death of having a massive number of separate things that could be done through the browser.

    • Thatuserguy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      Honestly to a certain extent I think being decentralized is somewhat beneficial. Perhaps it’s just the fact I’ve been visiting forums for like 20 years and feeling jaded, but I never liked that any knuckle dragger could easily make an account and act like an ass.

      It’s not a very high bar to clear to figure out how to sign up for lemmy, so if you can’t even figure that out, maybe it’s for the best to help prevent polluting the user pool. If you’re gonna be an ass, you should at least have to work for it.

  • FundMECFS@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2·
    5 months ago

    That’s why I when I recommend lemmy to people I just send a link to an instance I think they’ll like. Instead of explaining the whole thing. If they join the instance with time federation will start to make sense to them and they might migrate later on.

    • Kichae@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      5 months ago

      This.

      There are rough edges to the actual onboarding experience, of course, but the joinlemmy and joinmastodon and joinwahtever websites really aren’t a part of it. They’re more of an ad for admins, demonstrating that there’s an active network of sites already using the product. The fact that not even the product develoeprs seem to understand this is a real issue, though.

      Honestly, we need to stop sending people to “Lemmy” or “Mastodon” or whatever. Those are website engines. It’s like sending someone to “WordPress” when you want them to read your blog.

      • FundMECFS@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        1·
        5 months ago

        I look at it this way. If my grandma asks me how to “the email”, I’m not going to explain to her how she could choose outlook or gmail or whatever. I’m just going to choose and send the one I think is easiest for her to set up.

  • ekZepp@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    They should just add an automatic joining option based by location for the Lazy ass new users with the option to manually join any instances.

  • .Donuts@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    This keeps coming back from time to time. imo we need an instance or method to sandbox newbies.

    My old comment:

    A custom feed that allows new members to see a variety of the best that Lemmy has to offer would be a good start. Then, when they are comfortable with the platform and its dynamics, they can customise it further, or swap the newbie feed for their own custom filter (which practically would come down to community subscriptions, I suppose?)

    Now instead of making this comment very long, I’ll put in an video game anology to make it a bit more digestible:

    What we need is a tutorial area that showcases all the different things that the Lemmy endgame has to offer. Creating memes, sharing news, the art of shitposting, being a lurker, actual discussions vs just scrolling to see the funnies: all these things are enjoyed by different types of people, and before they can reclass and enjoy the wild open world of Lemmy, it would be good for them to get comfortable with the controls and settings in a relative safe space.

  • Steve Dice@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    lol not happening. Lemme just say it again: Lemmings are completely disconnected from reality. They can’t fathom that some people can’t or don’t want to spend time figuring that out. They will argue for days that “it’s not that hard” and people should just learn how to do it or stop being lazy or whatever before doing anything about it.

    Edit: I hadn’t even read the other comments in this thread before I typed this. There’s someone literally saying they want to gatekeep the fediverse from people without tech knowledge.

  • RobotToaster@mander.xyzEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    If what instance you chose truly didn’t matter this wouldn’t be as big of an issue. Unfortunately defederation causes a tangled mess of netsplits.

  • ricdeh@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    It just isn’t possible, and we should want to dumb down the introduction too much. The Fediverse is not a centralised medium, and to participate in it, its users should understand that, analogous to how you would instruct people before using motor vehicles. Some things are just essential and need to be taught. Not teaching the stuff doesn’t make it disappear. If some people cannot get behind the idea, then either find novel, intuitive ways of conveying it, or just accept that they cannot be a part of the Fediverse.

    • Blaze (he/him) @lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      5 months ago

      I’ve seen people using Voyager for a year and not even knowing what their instance is. They seem content, vote, post just like on Reddit.

      People can drive a car without knowing what type of engine it is. They turn the wheel, it turns.

  • Blaze (he/him) @lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    "Lemmy has 47k monthly active users

    Feel free if you have any questions"

    Edit: voyager link