this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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Technology

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They've made huge improvements to onboarding over the past few months, it's as easy as any other app now:

  1. Download Mastodon app
  2. Make acccount

It's literally that easy now. Anything to do with Federation (like following other users) is also hidden to the background unless you go looking for it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

The actual fedi experience for a non techy:

  1. Search Mastodon app
  2. Choose a Mastodon app, which one is the official, which one is the best, there's so many!
  3. Instances? Why can't I just sign up with Mastodon, what's going on?
  4. Okay, why are these all different rules, what does this mean, and why are they all different?
  5. What am I actually signing up for? Who owns this instance, which I don't understand the concept of? Will it randomly shut down?
  6. Who am I giving this personal data too?
  7. Okay, how do I find content, why is my feed so boring?
  8. Okay I clicked somebody's link and it takes me to a different website, why can't I like/reply/follow? Where am I?

At each one of these steps, there's a new learning curve. If it's not easy enough for your grandma, then it needs improvement.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Right, that used to be how it was done, but it's not anymore. The very first result in the iPhone app store and Google play store is the official app. The official app has not prompted the user to choose an instance since May of this year.

Many of the other questions (like about data and privacy) are extremely valid but also apply to any app, so by that logic Twitter for example would have considerably more steps than Mastodon simply by virtue of a significantly more complicated TOS.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Normies will not even come to mastadon so no need to dumb down the experience to grandma level. They will use Facebook or X just like they will use windows and edge. They use computers as if they were TVs, never changing any defaults even.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You should try the sign up process, you don't understand it. Explore tab shows you top posts on your instance to follow and no one posts links to masto comments because it doesn't look good.

The only actually confusing thing is people trying to quote tweet when it isn't possible, and maybe losing followers when there's server defed drama. Thankfully there hasn't been any recently.