Mastodon doesn't require you to pick an instance, but Bluesky and Threads are easier to use by not having instances to pick; CW: long (almost 2,000 characters), Fediverse meta, Bluesky, Meta Platforms, Threads
View article
View summary
Why are Bluesky and Threads so much better at onboarding than Mastodon?
Because they're both monolithic silos with only one instance each.
Mastodon doesn't require you to pick an instance. But the instance selection is that one UI element too many. Even though the instance selection nudges everyone towards mastodon.social, and even though it doesn't
require interaction, it's still there. And to someone who has never knowingly used anything decentralised (remember that most people think that e-mail is a Google or Microsoft product), its mere presence is confusing and irritating as hell. If the prospect of having to choose an instance doesn't drive people away because nobody tells them about Mastodon being decentralised, this selection box does.
Bluesky and Threads don't have such a selection box. That's because both only have one instance and no plans at all for launching more. Threads was conceived as a monolith from the get-go, and it only offers just barely enough ActivityPub connectivity to be allowed into the EU. Bluesky tries to skirt around actually connecting to something else by having its own protocol that isn't compatible with anything else, thereby fulfilling the requirements in the EU, while making it unattractive to launch third-party servers based on the AT protocol.
Also, UI/UX-wise, Bluesky is an almost perfect clone of immediately-pre-Musk Twitter, and I mean both the Web interface and the official app. You can use Bluesky exactly like you used Twitter without getting used to anything new. Big onboarding bonus. Threads' big onboarding bonus is that onboarding only requires you to flick one switch on Instagram. Bam, you're on Threads. Easy-peasy. If you're on a phone, install the Threads app, and there you go.
There simply is no way for Mastodon to mollycoddle newbies enough to be able to keep up with any of this. And Mastodon has the best onboarding in all of the non-Threads Fediverse by a gigantic margin because it's the only project that mollycoddles its users.
#
Long #
LongPost #
CWLong #
CWLongPost #
FediMeta #
FediverseMeta #
CWFediMeta #
CWFediverseMeta #
Onboarding #
Mastodon #
Bluesky #
Meta #
Threads
