I like your thoughts about having them look different from each other in someway to make them distinguishable. I think that might be a smart thing to do if you’re an instance owner.

I also think that we’re not really that far apart in what we’re both saying. When I read your example of the on boarding process for some people, it just reinforces what I said in my original reply, which was “ It's been my experience that people who couldn't figure out how to join Mastodon are the same people that get so used to doing things one way, that when you introduce a different way, they fall apart.” it’s not that ideas like “instances“ are difficult subjects to grasp, it’s that the person who is joining is expecting a different experience. Which I think causes part of their brain to kind of shut down a little. So things start to become confusing. I think this becomes obvious when you talk to people who had no issues joining. What they usually say is something along the lines of “I read it and caught on pretty quick.“ Which was my experience as well. Sure, once I got in it took me a few moments to realize what was what and get a grasp on @names but it was never something that made me say “this is too confusing“. It was just new. And I treated it like that.

Which makes me think that the people who say they don’t understand things like “Federation“ never really tried to understand them to begin with. As you noted, email is a handy comparison to use. When I’ve explained it to them like that, most people kind of smack their head and “get it” pretty quickly after that.

I’ve thought for a long time the first thing that someone should read when they try to join Mastodon is “This isn’t like any social media you’ve ever joined. We do things different, and if you read along, you’ll understand why.” Or something similar to get the person who is joining out of that frame of mind where they think they’re joining something that they’ve done before. I think that would put people in the right frame of mind right away.

But I’ve been known to be wrong before.

I can't imagine how much you must have suffered choosing an email client. 🙄

It's been my experience that people who couldn't figure out how to join Mastodon are the same people that get so used to doing things one way, that when you introduce a different way, they fall apart. Regardless if they've done virtually the same thing with different services.

Mastodon isn't difficult to sign up for and use. FFS there are people of all ages and tech experiences who figured it out easily. I've seen grandmas who only ever used Facebook figure out Mastodon and teens who failed english figure it out. It's not rocket science. It's just not what you are used to when signing up for similar services.

I love that the people who weren't smart enough to leave Twitter two years ago are now eagerly jumping from one frying pan into another.

Fortunately there have been a few who learned their lessons a bit late and came over to Mastodon.

But the rest of them? The one who tolerated the racism and misogyny that Musk brought with his red pilled idiots? Let them have Blue Sky and the rest of us can watch as history eventually repeats itself.

Cool.

I just started using Bitwarden almost a year now. I don't know how I lived without it before? It's nice to know I wont have to switch to something else.

Wait. YOU can't ?

I have hundreds of short form videos which are designed to uplift, encourage, and speak positively about mental health issues. I’ve had lots of people tell me that my videos in some small way encourage them to take the next step in their mental health.

In other words, it’s not the form of the video that matters, it’s the content.

As for the cost of the server, I think the videos will expire after a certain amount of time. Something like Snapchat.

The great thing about the Fediverse is that it offers options. Is this going to be exactly like TikTok? Of course not. Will it serve a purpose for some? Time will tell.

I only said "the left" instead of "the dems" to be more inclusive. If that was wrong, I apologize. My intent was not to "blame the left for liberal apathy" but to suggest we need to do more together.

And yes, I agree that liberals should embrace leftists more, they are the ones who are trying to stand up for the rights of others more then any group in my opinion.

So let me ask, what would you say is the best most actionable thing we can each do when it comes to safeguarding democracy this election? I mean that sincerely.

I honestly don't think "education" is the key. It's been well established that people don't make decisions according to "the facts" as much as we do our emotions. You can't "convince" someone that they are wrong unless you give them an emotional carrot to lead them.

Give them the facts, but give them an emotional grounding to those facts. "This is your chance to make a fascists day shit." might work better then "You need to vote because of X,Y,Z."

That's exactly what we need.

We each get one vote, but together we get to keep democracy.

The Fedi is what you make of it. Since there's no algorithm telling you who to follow or pushing posts to your feed, it's up to you to curate who you follow.

My feed is a mixture of shit posts, memes, cats and dogs, flowers, a little politics and a little tech. Chaos is why I'm here and who I follow reflects that. If your feed is full of info you don't care about, then you're following the wrong people.

Who is surprised at this? It's Twitter. It's a dumpster fire.

People still use Opera?