I wish more would appreciate Mastodon

I'll say it again and again and again:

The fediverse is hamstrung by the need to choose a specific server.

I remember trying to help people join Mastodon when Musk bought Twitter. Every question I heard was about picking a server.

What's a server?

Why do I have to pick a server?

How do I pick a server?

Then there were the more thoughtful questions.

What happens if the server I chose goes down?

What happens if someone chooses the same user name as mine on a different server?

Mastodon, Lemmy, etc. won't get mainstream traction until someone solves this simple hurdle.

I keep hammering home: instance doesn't matter when you start. It's more important for you to join. Once you join, you'll figure out the instance and then you can switch.
- Can you though? You'll lose all your data, your posts, your liles, your comments, your curated list of communities and usually also your Username. People don't like giving up their entire existence just because they made a wrong choice in the beginning.
And they don't even say server but "instance". Like need special words to keep the unwashed out.

It makes sense that they would go where the users are.

But not having a separate, European instance federated into the BlueSky network, that's the real wtf.

What if I told you Bluesky federates just as well as WhatsApp does with XMPP.
- Surely that's a bit unfair to BlueSky.
  From my brief lecture of the underlying protocol, public instances could exist and federate, it's only that they become quite expensive to run if done right.
  https://bsky.social/about/blog/02-22-2024-open-social-web

I don't understand why govt institutions don't just band together and use one of their many already running servers and add a mastodon or similar instance, so they won't ever need to worry about their shit being taken offline

Like, get all federal agencies and currently serving politicians to post on the govt-run mastodon, instead of bsky or xitter.

Me like other people, had the idea of ECI (European citizen initiative) to ask EU level entities to start using the Fediverse. The process is quite slow as I do not have much time but, if you are European and can help, have a look here:
An European Citizens' Initiative for the adoption of the Fediverse in the European Union's institutions:
https://europe.pub/post/61266

Shoutout to the European Commission: https://ec.social-network.europa.eu/@EUCommission

Also: Court of Justice of the EU @Curia@curia.social-network.europa.eu
These stopped being maintained in 2024 unfortunately:
EU Food Safety Administration https://social.network.europa.eu/@EFSA
EU Data Protection Supervisor https://social.network.europa.eu/@EDPS
EU Space Program Administration https://social.network.europa.eu/@EUSPA
EU Aid and Crisis response https://social.network.europa.eu/@EC_ECHO

I wish fewer people would "appreciate" micro-blogging and short videos in general. It has too much of an influence on public discourse and the short posts aren't really suitable for the complex issues we face today.

Tbh I have little interest in either of them

Considering Mastodon sucks from a UX perspective i don't blame them or users. Mastodon seems to be a great case of Open Source and decentralized being so fervently followed that people ignore the absolute real problems with it thus ensuring it will never become any type of mainstream.

Actually trying to find interesting content on Mastodon is fuckin awful, bluesky learned what i liked and hands me new awesome artists pretty much daily. Combine that with the whole having to select an instance and remember how to use it and cross instance posting and blah blah blah and your average person is not even going to look at Mastodon

Considering Mastodon sucks from a UX perspective i don't blame them or users.
This narrative is tired, particularly with Mastodon.
All open source projects that aren't violently ruthless about pursuing profits are going to lag behind tech companies approaching social media from the perspective of a cigarette company that also is selling the capacity to rich interests to distort, artificially elevate or silence perspectives.
Should we all push for a more accessible fediverse? Of course, but what is your perspective bringing to the table that does anything other than restate the incredible material inequality in resources between the two things you are comparing?
On the contrary I think the UX of mastodon is impressively boring and functional compared to the ever enshittifying slop and paper thin future promises served up by multimillion and multibillion dollar social media companies.