I think that the "Mastodon is hard" vibe comes largely from folks who expect to be able to "find everyone on one app".

I think that the "Mastodon is hard" vibe comes largely from folks who expect to be able to "find everyone on one app". I think when we tell folks leaving Twitter/Bluesky/Facebook/whatever about the Fediverse, it's important to address this disconnect with honesty and patience.

No, it is not "just like email". Because for 90% of folks email is "just another app".

It's more like webrings.

My server federates with some, not with others. There are places on the Fediverse where folks will not see me- at least not with my consent.

This carries the "IYKYK" spirit of webrings (if not the technical undercurrent, don't chase me pedants).

With webrings you were an active participant. You had to curate, or your webring died in chaos or worse yet, heat death.

This whole thing is familiar to folks who were online in the turn of the century, and is a far cry from "there's an app".

Your webring members could have been part of multiple webrings. Some of those you might have argued with. Some you might have even found disqualifying!

But nobody accidentally joined a webring. Nobody would have been able to consolidate a loose collection of websites into a single organized structure where all information was visible.

The internet at the turn of the century was undoubtedly harder. Information was scattered, search was laughably complicated, connections were slower.

But here's the thing I'm learning as I keep growing up: our brains? They like work.

Google providing information in the blink of an eye sped up my results and thrashed my attention span. Why train my brain for complicated research if I can just access information instantly?

Since the advent of wireless internet, always-on connectivity, and mobile computing, the "time spent working on learning" for the average netizen has decreased. For me, that's made me a less patient person, and I'm someone who deliberately **shuts off the internet** every day.

Mastodon? Fediverse? I'm willing to bet for a very-online person these are increasingly really hard concepts to grasp.

I don't think that the solution to getting folks to adopt the Fediverse is to change the Fediverse.

I think the solution is to show folks how great it is to have to curate your life. How wonderful it is to have to *work* for discovering new information. How challenging your mindset and stretching your grey matter is a positive.

To start with, when I talk about the Fediverse, I always say "the jank is a feature".

On Fedi, it is **absolutely** a feature that my posts aren't seen by everyone.

On Fedi, it is **absolutely** a feature that I have to ask questions because search is less-than perfect.

On Fedi, it is **absolutely** a feature that in order to host on your own domain you have to spin up infrastructure or work with someone who can.

On Fedi, it is **absolutely** a feature that there are entirely closed-off networks inaccessible from the outside.

These are features. Jank is a feature. Embrace it.