The pedantry is more than I can even believe. How is this genuine and not trolling?
I get your intent - that people don't understand what federation means. But you're completely ignoring that we all live with federated email servers. Federated cell phone carriers, too, for that matter.
This is honestly not that different.
I 100% get what your intent is, but you seem to 100% not get that this sentence was completely false:
> I can sign up for an email right now with a dozen different services and not one will make me complete a mysterious task like "choosing a server"
And the same way that you can't "create your email account first, and then pick a server later," is the same exact reason you can't "create your Mastodon account first, and then pick your server later."
It's literally the same reason.
And you still seem to be completely rejecting that concept. As though this is "just bad UX." It's fundamental to how both e-mail and Mastodon work.
They can't "fix it," the way you wish they could.
Sure, they might come up with something, but it would be inherently worse at some really important things it's trying to do. It wants to be federated. Just like email. And you seem to not have any understanding of that.
AND to be -mad- at the people who are trying to help you understand. As though we're purposefully wasting your time.
So instead of telling people "sign up for mastodon," if it make you feel better, tell them to "sign up for X" where X is one of the ten servers I mentioned in my mastodon explainer post[0], none of which are aimed specifically at tech-savvy people.
There are people who do not know how to read any written language, at all, who use Smartphones on a daily basis. They learn how to navigate the icons, without any ability to read.
I think you have no memory of what it used to be like to put an app on your iPhone. Over-The-Air installs and updates didn't happen at first. People had to use iTunes on a Desktop, with a cord plugged in, to do stuff.
My 90 year old grandmother knew how to get into the App Store, install apps, and set up accounts.
I think you're vastly underestimating the number of steps users will go through to get at something good.
So, please, think about that for a moment.
But more importantly, if I send you an invite to the same Mastodon server I'm on, you literally skip the one and only one new step ("pick a server") that you've spent all of this time and energy complaining about.
Yup.
The thing you've been bemoaning this entire time isn't even an issue, if you get an invite link.
And frankly, that's probably how the majority of eventual Mastodon users will actually get there - by following a link a friend sends them.
Have a great weekend.
You know who wants to see Mastodon as a Twitter replacement ? Not Mastodon users, and not fediverse inhabitants. It's all the Twitter serfs who want to find a new place where they will be taken care of. Except that place doesn't exist in the Fediverse.
For some reason people keep complaining about Mastodon not being easy enough, but it's the same people who believe they are expert enough to speak in the name of non-experts. It gets tiring to hear them.
But when they make it based on a flawed claim, like, "I can get an email account without first picking a server," don't you think it's better if they understand that their claim was false?