As a journalist who often writes about tech and has found the transition to Mastodon pretty fulfilling, let me just say that I didn't realize how much of a problem this was until a fellow writer reached out to me about how to get set up over there, I offered to help, they posted twice, didn't appear to read any of my advice on where to start or who to follow, then ... completely dunked on the network.

I am convinced that some journalists are using the wrong signals to decide whether a social network is good. It's not the onboarding, it's how the experience goes a month, or even a year, in. But tech companies are focused on building the userbase which means they're figuring out the infrastructure after the fact. Because the fediverse is open and has figured out this part, onboarding isn't as much a priority, when in reality it's the final coat of paint, the thing house flippers use to distract from the poor foundation.

That has me convinced that there needs to be folks actually writing about this space in earnest as a phenomenon, because they're not getting it from their usual sources. I'm working on this now. If anyone here has thoughts on what that should look like, I'd love to hear.