i think it’s not that “choosing a server” is confusing to non-technical folks — it’s more that it does not have the same kind of consequences as on mastodon.
on mastodon, choosing a server is like choosing where to build a house. on bluesky, choosing a server is like choosing an internet provider.
on mastodon, choosing a server is like choosing where to build a house. on bluesky, choosing a server is like choosing an internet provider.
Reposted from
Kuba Suder 🇵🇱🇺🇦
Yeah, so this is one of the things where Bluesky decided that the Mastodon approach of having people pick a server before they sign up doesn't really work for most non-technical people… a large % of people just decide they don't have time for this and give up.
Comments
Heck I only found that out a year in when there was more than mastodon(dot)social
It's better to get the post-account-creation migration tooling to a good place, so that it can happen later when it's a more meaningful choice
“Hey are you on Mastodon?”
“Is it https://mastodon.com?”
“Well no you need to choose a server.”
“A what?”
I don’t think it’s a bad thing. A little friction can be good.
- No quote posts
- No global search
- Weird expectations with content warnings
- No algorithmic feeds
- Server only sees a fraction of the replies and likes
Etc.
All of these significantly differ from the usual user expectations for a social media platform
Which then opens the whole rabbit hole of explaining federation.
my friend sends me a link to a mastodon post and i can't interact with it. i need to copy that link, go log into my instance, paste that in the search, browse to it, and then interact
shitty expectation-breaking UX
1/2
Oh... I already forgot how awful to have low symbols count limitation here, it's like "phone call limit of 30 seconds".
2/2