I've been using Tweetbot exclusively for several years. I've been hearing about Mastodon for a while on HN, especially surrounding the recent Twitter drama, but have never looked at it. Not even searching more on what it's about or how it's different from Twitter (again, other than what context I gain from HN discussions).
After the Twitter API shutdown (I'm heavily suspecting it's intentional/permanent), I blindly downloaded the Mastodon app. The homescreen has two buttons: Create Account and Log In.
I click Create Account and I'm presented with a list of servers that I can filter by interest. I'm thinking "I don't want to join a server, just let me create an account and start following feeds."
I imagine it's like Discord (maybe?), where you actually join a community of other users based on an interest. But if so, the current list of Mastodon servers feels very limited (i.e. no US-based regional servers, no "interest" server that interests me) -- so what do I do? I'm assuming I can just arbitrarily join a random server, but that just feels completely unintuitive.
I just closed it, and will wait to see how the Twitter drama unfolds.
Needless to say, if Mastodon is looking to replace Twitter (maybe they're not?), they need a better, more frictionless way to onboard new users. I'm sure I could spend 5 minutes online to figure out what the point of joining a server is, and how to decide which one to join. But I shouldn't need to.
After the Twitter API shutdown (I'm heavily suspecting it's intentional/permanent), I blindly downloaded the Mastodon app. The homescreen has two buttons: Create Account and Log In.
I click Create Account and I'm presented with a list of servers that I can filter by interest. I'm thinking "I don't want to join a server, just let me create an account and start following feeds."
I imagine it's like Discord (maybe?), where you actually join a community of other users based on an interest. But if so, the current list of Mastodon servers feels very limited (i.e. no US-based regional servers, no "interest" server that interests me) -- so what do I do? I'm assuming I can just arbitrarily join a random server, but that just feels completely unintuitive.
I just closed it, and will wait to see how the Twitter drama unfolds.
Needless to say, if Mastodon is looking to replace Twitter (maybe they're not?), they need a better, more frictionless way to onboard new users. I'm sure I could spend 5 minutes online to figure out what the point of joining a server is, and how to decide which one to join. But I shouldn't need to.