> Mastodon starts off by explaining how federates instances work and then gives you a list of popular ones to choose from.
This is kind of terrible.
Now instead of just putting in your emails you have to make an impactful choice that won't be terribly easy to reverse. Now you have to check which instances have sane moderation, which instances actually have funding so they won't just die on you, which instances are fast or slow, which instances have blocked which other instances, and all the other inevitable petty drama between them. And again, this is compared to just putting in your email and not thinking about it.
And this isn't even inherent to federation either! Matrix has an officially-endorsed default homeserver for people who just want to create an account (most people). You don't have to understand federation to use Matrix, it's available if you want it, but you could live without understanding any of it. This causes Matrix to have a much better on-boarding experience.
This is kind of terrible.
Now instead of just putting in your emails you have to make an impactful choice that won't be terribly easy to reverse. Now you have to check which instances have sane moderation, which instances actually have funding so they won't just die on you, which instances are fast or slow, which instances have blocked which other instances, and all the other inevitable petty drama between them. And again, this is compared to just putting in your email and not thinking about it.
And this isn't even inherent to federation either! Matrix has an officially-endorsed default homeserver for people who just want to create an account (most people). You don't have to understand federation to use Matrix, it's available if you want it, but you could live without understanding any of it. This causes Matrix to have a much better on-boarding experience.