Yeah, things requiring choosing a instance like email are doomed to fail
JaymesRS@literature.cafe 2 days ago
As long as the fediverse has a barrier to entry for most people of mandating choosing a server first, it will never become the mainstream choice.
db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
JaymesRS@literature.cafe 2 days ago
I’m guessing you meant this sarcastically, but you may have been right for the wrong reasons. Look at this graph, by the metric of the way the fediverse works that is a failure. Apple and Google are massively dominant because people don’t want to think about it and most just go with their phone is maker, and there is no fediverse server equivalent to that.
Zak@lemmy.world 2 days ago
This looks like it’s conflating service providers and clients. Thunderbird doesn’t provide email accounts to the public as far as I know.
zerozaku@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Same with Apple mail right? I never used an Apple device and was shocked to see them over Gmail because I thought Apple actually gives email service when I saw the graph.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Nevertheless email stays the defacto standard for business communication and has stayed intercompatible with a wide range of clients, servers and plugins. So this graph could be better but is apparently not a big issue as long as companies and unis keep running their own servers, forcing big tech to stay with tbe standards.
JaymesRS@literature.cafe 2 days ago
That works when the decentralized protocol is the 800 lb gorilla first. You can’t get there with the fediverse in this internet era, sadly.
xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 2 days ago
I don’t think I’ve ever received an e-mail from an Apple Mail address.
illi@lemm.ee 2 days ago
So you are saying Mastodon won’t take off because people need to choose a server but also because having a “default” where majority will ptobably end up is bad - but this is literally the solution to the problem you mentioned
maegul@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
I mean, I hear you (we’re both here after all), but honestly, I think this is a bad take and approach (if getting more users is a goal.
It’s not the 90s anymore. And even email services are given to you by your employer or selected from the closest big brand provider (Google etc).
All of which is a far cry from “nerdygardeners.io” administered by some rando anonymous account you’ve never heard of before.
For mainstream success, the instances thing was dead on arrival. Just was and is. Which is fine, the Fedi can be and arguably should be something else.
IMO the success of BlueSky is good for the Fedi. It can take the “let’s be the next mainstream thing” monkey off of its back and just be itself.
joyjoy@lemm.ee 2 days ago
At least in the early days of email before gmail, hotmail, or yahoo, you would get assigned an email from your work, university, or ISP.
scytale@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Not really. I mean, sure it’s the same concept, but email has been getting semi-centralized between the big players now, with gmail and maybe icloud getting the largest chunk of users. That would be similar to letting users choose between .world or .ml to sign up with, which is against the fediverse principle to spread the load as wide as possible.
When you present the lowest common denominator internet user with hundreds of instances to choose from and requiring them to think further than clicking through a sign-up page, you lose user interest pretty quickly.
pennomi@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’m actually okay with semi-centralized. Most people need that to trust a platform, but it still gives you the option to self host if you really care.
Kichae@lemmy.ca 22 hours ago
I mean, it’s a network of indeoendent websites. I’m not sure what kind of solution to this people want.
People seem to be able to choose which wrbsite they’re signing up for when looking at Twitter, BlueSky, and Threads. It’s not like it’t that weird of an idea.
They even grok the idea that different Wordpress-based websites are different from each other!
Maybe if we stopped treating “Mastodon” as a space, and talked about it like the webhost software it is, people would understand.
halm@leminal.space 2 days ago
This is the exact reason email never took off. /s
mosiacmango@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Email was invented in 1983.
It was revolutionary, the utter example of a “killer app” that had people and businesses running out to buy computers just to replace paper memos. You setup your mail server to hook into that stunning ecosystem of near inatant communication from across the world.
Now there are 6,000,000,000 “killer” apps you can install in seconds from your pocket computer. I can hit “install” and be talking face to face with a stranger in Singapore in 30 seconds, all from with easy, no or low effort walled gardens.
Federation was and is a reasonable way to host things, but comparing it to email is a misnomer. People dealt with federation because they had to. If gmail has existed in 1983, no one would have had their own federated servers. Hell, AOL tried to choke the internet itself, including email, to death and almost succeeded in the early 90s because it was an “all in one” solution. They had aol only webpages and everything.
Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
So what, should we have a website where you push a button and it sends you to a random instance to sign up?
MyOpinion@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Just imagine the surprise when a new user is placed in hexbear or one of the porn servers.
R3D4CT3D@midwest.social 2 days ago
oof, i learned about hexb the hard way, so i feel for these hypothetical users already.
nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Yes honestly, we can manage what instances are pooled for on boarding.
TORFdot0@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The idea would be the servers would have shared ban/block lists and similar rules so that they can share the load of having open sign ups.
Basically a coop of instances to improve on-boarding. If you join the coop then you get added to the pool of instances that get assigned normies at random.
If the authentication was federated it’d be ideal as well but I assume this would be outside the scope of AP and would cause issues if you tried to post from your mastodon.social account from mastodon.world’s server for instance.
bufalo1973@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
The authentication could be another service, split from Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, … that only gave that service. The instance asks the auth server about “user@instance: password” and the server just says “OK/fail”. That or sending the user to the auth server to get a session cookie.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Or you make it like a traditional website with an API used by people making frontends, but the backend (the database) is decentralized, just like regular websites but instead of having a bunch of servers owned by AWS it’s just a bunch of people providing storage space.
Emperor@feddit.uk 2 days ago
What would be the incentive for people to do that?
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
What is the incentive for people to host an instance at the moment?
What is the incentive for people to share files via peer to peer networks?
What is the incentive for people to host Minecraft servers?
Need me to go on?
JaymesRS@literature.cafe 2 days ago
See my reply above, but for most users, yes, that’s the easier onboarding.
madjo@feddit.nl 18 hours ago
As long as email has a barrier to entry for most people of mandating choosing a server first, it will never become the mainstream choice.
matcha_addict@lemy.lol 1 day ago
You don’t have to choose. Joinmastodon.org chooses for you, and you can choose one yourself as well but only if you want to.
unrushed233@lemmings.world 1 day ago
mastodon.social exists
It’s literally there to take the choice away from new users
heavyboots@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Just log onto mastodon.social and be done with it. That’s the one that will still be running until the they turn out the lights on the service, I figure. And then go kick in a buck or two a month on Patreon to help defray development and server costs. (Not being the product is worth a donation by itself, I figure.)
Emperor@feddit.uk 2 days ago
The best thing for on-boarding are topic-specific instances, it makes picking one much easier.
ghostface@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Why can’t mastodon influencers create content on how easy it is to pick a server.
Ah make it like a food hall and anthropo the servers as food.
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Hey… that just gave me a small idea… what if we made a “flock” or “herd” of Mastodon servers? The group of servers would all federate with each other, have the same block and allow lists, moderation policy and teams spread throughout them.
When you make an account you can be assigned a random instance name within the flock. If your instance goes down you could still possibly log in using other servers? Main benefit would be spreading server costs and maintenance effort and de-centralized operating, but still keep a centralized feel to it?
JaymesRS@literature.cafe 2 days ago
Honestly that’s probably the best sort of solution. A group that has some minimum standards of moderation and maintenance/upgrade management plan and just evenly distribute the load as people arrive.
Then as a second phase make it easy to transfer, that way ad the point the user gets comfortable they can easily swap to a better “home” for those that care, for those that don’t, make the server choice be virtually invisible.
R3D4CT3D@midwest.social 2 days ago
i like the idea of a server choice virtually invisible feature!
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Man, it feels like you guys haven’t spoken to a real human in decades…
xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 2 days ago
Let me see how you get instance admins to agree on what to defederate.
SeekPie@lemm.ee 22 hours ago
Maybe a vote of 75% minimum would be good?