Joining a Mastodon server is just as simple as signing up to Facebook. The difference is that no single Mastodon instance has centralized control over their users; you always get the option of signing up elsewhere, or using your own instance.
If you can figure out that’s the “main” server to go sign up on, sure.
With Facebook and Twitter there is no question where to go sign up. That’s less clear with Mastodon. Simply knowing one has a choice of servers will turn some away.
The only proper way that I can see to join Mastodon is to have your own personal instance. And maybe that's how social media should be, but then the difference between that and a webserver with an RSS feed is getting quite small.
What are you talking about? You don't need to host your own Mastodon server. You can sign up with one of the many open instances, just like gmail and hotmail let you do for e-mail.
The sign-up process doesn't actually begin until you pick an instance and go to it directly, just like with email. It's like complaining about a website that explains what email is and gives you a list of service providers to choose from.
The email service of your choice is the "server" you've chosen. If you go directly to a mastodon instance (the "server") the sign-up process won't require you to choose a server.
It's actually pretty simple. Just sign up to any instance/server. It doesn't really matter which one. You can follow and interact with anyone, regardless of which server they signed up for. Then it's just like Twitter for the most part.
I feel the "multiple instances" aspect of Mastodon really confuses people. Highlighting it to new users is not working in their favour.
You're forgetting that Mastodon runs on ActivityPub, which means that the point is to divide users into different servers. For example, when everyone joined mastodon.social, the balance tipped and a lot of users lost access. Concentrating users into a single instance is not what's supposed to happen.
Ideally, you wouldn't want to go through joinmastodon.org and join the highest ranking server since that would centralize the whole protocol. It's favorable for everyone using the service that you join invite-only niche servers or self host.
Centralized social networks only have one instance that is controlled by a single company. Mastodon can be self-hosted by anyone, and any instance can interact with any other instance by default. Any Mastodon user can pick an instance with server rules that suit their preferences, while centralized social network users must abide by the rules of the only available instance.
Mastodon servers and clients are free and open source, and also ad-free. Most Mastodon instances allow you to sign up without providing any personal information other than an email.
I see your point and identify with the frustration, but at the end of the day that's kind of the entire point of Mastodon and the main distinction that makes it stand out from Twitter. It's decentralized. There is no one server, and there can never be a complete and up to date list of all servers. Discord isn't a perfect comparison because even though they separate communities and sign-ups, it's still all hosted and operated by Discord.
The most frictionless way to join Mastodon is when a friend or group of friends invites you personally to theirs, or if you discover a community online that really jives with you and you want to join.
The key phrase in your statement is "on a friends invite server."
Okay, so if you don't already have a friend on Mastodon, then what? Have you actually looked at the list on https://joinmastodon.org/servers recently?
Half the comments here say it doesn't matter what server you choose, and half are saying to be sure to choose the one that aligns with your interests, which... see the list above for why that's an issue.
Panic? No. It's just an example of mastodon needlessly limiting itself in terms of usability right at the starting gate.
The fact that before you can join Mastodon, you first have to choose what server you're going to host your account on is going to turn off 90% of people right there. They should have a default instance you can join from the front page and make it an option to join another.
How does Mastodon work? It says you can't register on mastodon.social anymore because it's too big. If you sign up on different server, can you still interact with people on mastodon.social and other servers...?
To the user, Mastodon is the service. But the very first step of sign-up, Mastodon says the user must "choose a server". They just did! It's called Mastodon.
Now, you may see it differently and want to offer an explanation. I'm sure your explanation would be coherent and rational. But your explanation means nothing to the average user. They click 'sign up' and expect to sign up and get to using this new website called Mastodon they heard about. And when they realize it's not that simple, many will abandon the process. It's a simple as that.
The server you join only effects what website you go to interact with Mastodon, who stores your data, and what you're allowed to say. But from any mastodon instance, you can read content which is hosted on any other mastodon instance.
Basically Mastodon is a bunch of different social networks, but you can follow/subscribe people who are using any of them. If you want your own server, you need to leave it on somewhere for it to pull messages from other people and push yours out. Otherwise, you can just pick a server and set up an account on it.
Which server you join doesn't particularly matter, but most of them offer some sort of "see all of the messages on this server" functionality, so if you pick one with a lot of people who have common interests, you'll have a better default experience.
This has happened. Lots of servers, including the ones run by the Mastodon project, are now closed to new users. If you want an account on a Mastodon server then you pretty much need to set one up yourself, or know someone crazy enough to think joining the Holy Order Of Social Plumbers sounds like a good thing.
> The first thing you have to do when you sign up is choose a server
> It doesn't hugely matter which one you are on because you will be able to follow users on all the others anyway
> The server you choose becomes part of your user name
> Unlike Twitter, Mastodon won't suggest followers you may be interested in
OK, so this shouldn't be the first step unless the "server" is a key part of the experience or has other benefits. A company laser focused on signups, like Twitter was at one point, would aim a growth team at this and remove all unnecessary signup steps to reduce friction. Steps like... first enter email, then auto-suggest a username, then suggest some interests (i.e., people) to follow, then (and only then) allow for the editing and selection of your username.
> he had over 6,000 new joiners in 24 hours and had to pause registration
You don't turn off signups when things get too hot. You allow signup and then throttle the experience. Reach back out when things cool down and get people re-engaged. (This is difficult, but better than nothing.)
In any case, if Mastodon is a bit like email (as another comment suggested), what will make it "just work" is an upgraded experience to make it easy to sign up. Yes, you will be "picking your server" by selecting your upgraded experience -- such as AOL, Gmail, Yahoo, etc. -- but then they will also need to monetize it or track your usage for other reasons.
In fact, if it gets any traction, perhaps Google will spin up a Mastodon service as a companion to Gmail.
For those wondering about how to sign up to mastodon and what server to pick:
It's like picking an email server. They all have their differences, but generally they are interoperable. You can read users from anywhere, and follow from anywhere. Better yet, it's fairly easy to move your account from one server to another if you don't like it.
Your best bet is some of the bigger second-tier servers (ones that have thousands but not hundreds of thousands of users) because they aren't as heavily loaded.
That's because you don't really join "Mastodon" like you don't really join "XMPP". You pick an instance that has people that you want to talk to and that lets you federate usefully with other servers. You can join multiple instances for different uses if you want, although they do mostly federate with others.
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