Today we’re making signing up on Mastodon easier than ever before. We understand that deciding which Mastodon service provider to kick off your experience with can be confusing. We know this is a completely new concept for many people, since traditionally the platform and the service provider are one and the same. This choice is what makes Mastodon different from existing social networks, but it also presents a unique onboarding challenge.
I know what they’re going for but yeah it does seem like an iffy move to sign everyone up for a main server. Unless they’re letting people get settled and then emailing/encouraging them after a couple weeks/months to change instances?
Problem with that being that most people won’t want to move after setting things up in the first place.
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Yea, generally agreed all round here. For me, the ideal solution is a landing / newbies instance where your account can only last for a fixed period coupled with a focus on making it super easy to move your account.
Putting that aside however, I think the signal here is pretty clear. Mastodon now has a big brand and product with users who have criticisms and scope to grow. And now they acknowledge it, as it’s gotten real for them, so they’re taking it seriously as a centralised organisation would and arguably should. They’ve got their app, landing page, and obviously big fat server.
All up, an open source crowd funded alternative to Twitter, which is actually pretty cool. And by the looks of it, a bunch of powerful changes are coming that are really going to transform the platform from a niche safe place to a mainstream social media platform (search, post mobility, quotes, groups).
But for the rest of the fediverse, the giant gorilla now knows how strong it is and is willing to stretch and flex its muscles. Something like 1/7 of the fediverse is on mastodon.social. They could be completely defederated and not care that much.