this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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Mastodon
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Decentralised and open source social network.
founded 5 years ago
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It's pretty obvious 99% of users bounce off the signup page. People who think otherwise simply are too disconnected from normie reality
Here is what happens
Let's join this thing
I have to choose a server ? Ok which one ?
Wow that's so many, is this important or cani pick at random ?
If you pick wrong, everything you write could be deleted or never seen by anyone.
Ok, well I better choose properly
Read server rules pages for 2-3 minutes
There's a distraction
Later, joins threads
And those who don't, bounce off the fact that it's not intuitive to follow someone from their user page.
Mastodon is not as complicated as it is sometimes made out to be, but it'a disingenuous to pretend that it's simple, either.
I wouldn't even go that far to be honest.
"wtf is this"?
There are benefits to having an extremely, extremely small barrier to entry.
To prevent spammers ? Yes To prevent grandma ? No
Depends on whose grandma. My own nice sweet grandma returned to life for some reason? Sure! Somebody's deranged racist grandma who used to bring casseroles to the local neofascist meeting? No thanks!
You forgot the step where you write three paragraphs explaining why you want a server account and get denied because you didn't supply sufficient detail for them to approve your application.
And yet, my server where this is policy is thriving. If it grew any faster than it has been there would likely have been even greater technical issues, and there has never been a lack of people to talk to. It's almost like there are benefits to not letting people create hundreds of bogus accounts that outweigh the small cost to the user!
This obsession with growth is pathological. People have internalized the needs of capital and don't even understand their own needs.