For those that have poked around other fediverse stuff beyond Lemmy, and been around the spaces awhile, what’s stuck out to you as stumbling blocks, or basic user experience fumbles? Which parts do you think may be technical, and which may be cultural?

  • Onboarding. The fact that you have to choose an instance to join while creating an account is essentially forcing people to make a decision for which, unless they’ve done some reading, they’ll have no idea of the implications. It’s such a weird concept for new users - they have to know about a thing before they’ve had experience with a thing.

    Even if it doesn’t really matter which instance you begin with, the experience will be different, and there’s a sense of “pressure” at the point of signup, which doesn’t exist outside of the Fediverse.

    • Even if it doesn’t really matter which instance you begin with, the experience will be different, and there’s a sense of “pressure” at the point of signup, which doesn’t exist outside of the Fediverse.

      Would you not say it’s more like it doesn’t exist to the same degree? Not that that diminishes your point, mind, only that in my experience online I’ve found similar when it comes to other online communities, say when deciding different Discord servers to join and some requiring waiting, reacting to be able to chat, or more rarely, have 2 factor authentication enabled of all things.

      Before that, and more a sign of my age I guess, it would have been different forums, different chat rooms, and the like. Each similar in basic functionalities, but different experiences and a different sense of “pressure” to each.

    • I can see this going the way of Minecraft servers. Little banner ads that explain a community’s perks. Heh. This is a concern to me too, and the effort involved is what’s keeping me from joining and posting on other Fediverse apps immediately, and I’m putting it off.