Picking an email provider is quite critical - if you change your email address, you can be only reached if everyone knows your new address, lets not even get started about where the email is used to identify you with other serviced.
I think your choice of a a mastodon server falls in the middle ground between those examples, at minimum, there needs to be a bit more education of users to overcome (perceived?) hurdles there. I can confirm that while I noticed mastodon before, earlier attempts to use it stopped at the question on how to select the proper node and what consequences that has. That might be a perceived problem, but one that needs to be overcome if mastodon should be a popular Twitter alternative.
I go to https://mastodon.social/ because that's where people say things are happening, and I click "Create Account." I'm told I can't sign up here, but I can "Find another server"
You've already lost a huge percentage of potential users, but let's say I press on. I click through to https://joinmastodon.org/servers and see things like glasgow.social and metalhead.club. I'm neither Glaswegian nor a metalhead, so what do I choose? On what basis do I make this choice? It's immediately overwhelming, with a very real fear of picking the "wrong" server and somehow missing out on, well, I don't know, because how would I?
im not at all sure why people are panicked about this.
Okay, so if you don't already have a friend on Mastodon, then what? Have you actually looked at the list on https://joinmastodon.org/servers recently?
Half the comments here say it doesn't matter what server you choose, and half are saying to be sure to choose the one that aligns with your interests, which... see the list above for why that's an issue.
Panic? No. It's just an example of mastodon needlessly limiting itself in terms of usability right at the starting gate.
why is this a key statement? my point is that being on a friends server hasn't altered the experience at all.
i migrated to my friends server a couple days ago from mastodon.social--i literally haven't noticed any difference at all, the experience from everything i can tell has been identical as it was prior. the server im on made literally no difference.
i still follow the same people.
i still have the exact same followers.
my timeline is identical.
i still see all of tehir posts.
they still see mine.
i still see posts they repost.
again, i have noticed absolutely nothing meaningfully different. other than maybe the address i type into the address bar to reach the site, but i dont think thats "meaningful" in any meaningful ;) way.
The phrase is key because it reflects a familiarity which new users do not have. Have you never in your life been introduced to an environment you didn't understand and felt put off by everybody using words you didn't know, or words you did know in ways you didn't understand? Never, in any situation?
Because that's exactly how it feels for many, many, many new users of mastodon now.
what im trying to say, again, is that their panicking is entirely unfounded.
whether you create your account at mastodon.social, fosstodon.org, mastodon.online, vis.social, toot.cat, or your friends totallyraddomainname.com--its not a life or death decision.
particularly because you can simply migrate to another server if you're picky about some minutia that most people don't care about. it feels like overblown fearmongering.
sure, maybe they're experience analysis paralysis, which is definitely a problem sometimes for those who are terrified of technology, but at the end of the day it is over analyzing. one of the reasons mastodon so drastically overtook other federated attempts is because it made it possible to migrate without losing your followers, you just move and poof, you're done. it removes the importance to which server you choose.
As it happens, I picked a server earlier today, more or less at random (one that didn't manually review applications), so I'm set. But the experience was very negative, and fraught with apparent peril.
If the choice of server matters so little, perhaps this site could be improved: https://joinmastodon.org/servers
how so? its just a protocol, just like email. which concerns do you have that it is not as portable as email?