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Comment by oneeyedpigeon | Hacker News Reader

Yet, people are confused by it. I think this is at least partly because there's even less to differentiate the different mastodon domains than there was to differentiate gmail and yahoo. And, of course, there are a lot of people growing up now who don't really use email, so the analogy can't be taken for granted.

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Stages of enlightenment:

1. That didn't work as I expected.

2. I am confused!

3. Oh, that's how it works! I learned something.

Humans go through this every day, in domains technological and not.

Most people stop at step two and wait around for someone to do it for them.

Right, and this is all you need to point out to burst anyone's bubble who insists on behalf of "the people" that it's all too hard.

It just goes in circles with personal anecdotes that always coincidentally corroborate whatever position someone was already arguing for anyway. What would be really interesting to see is someone making the case against Mastodon but acknowledging that "people I know" weren't confused by it or vice versa.

Stores won't let you have cash-back from your purchase when using your debit card if you flash the card. You have to insert the card. Some cashiers don't even know that. I don't feel enlightened by that fact. Newer cars won't disengage the hand-break if parked on a slope and you don't have the seat locked in. I don't feel enlightened by that fact. The list of "rules" goes on and on and technology feels oppressive, not empowering. Maybe is artificial enlightenment?

Sorry for the rant.

But when they are faced with two options, one of which is confusing and requires figuring out, and another one that does not, with the first having no clear advantages over the second, why would they bother spending time figuring it out?

What is the evidence for people being confused about that? Did any scientist some research about this, are there any facts or studies about this issue? Or does just someone think it is an issue?

Personal anecdotes. It's always personal anecdotes that coincidentally corroborate whatever position someone was already arguing for. As I noted elsewhere, it would be a lot easier to take these seriously if they weren't so on the nose, and if they instead took the form of "well it seems they have account migration figured out BUT instances are confusing BUT the sign up process is streamlined BUT it's not easy to explain to people..."

It would be clear we were at least talking about things where "the people" had reactions to specific things for specific reasons that were in principle solveable and not merely ghosted into existence to support a point the commenter wanted to make anyway.

I think people see one another doing it and kind of collectively converge on this ritual of collective storytelling where we offer anecdotes that don't offer any kind of truth tracking accountability.

they may be confused by it yet it is not a hard concept

Therefore it's a bad concept.

are all hard to understand concepts bad concepts?

are hard concepts from math and science bad concepts? should we discard calculus?

is potty training a toddler a bad concept? they initially struggle with it and some find it hard

is a healthy diet a bad concept? people without prior knowledge of what's healthy and what isn't are likely to struggle

People being confused by a concept is the definition of it being hard.

No, it can just be because they haven't been exposed to it or needed to care about it. Obviously people's real names have similar problems and nobody is confused that John Smith isn't the same person as John Jones.

Anglophones are often confused by the concept of tone being used to differentiate words in many non-European languages.

But it's not a hard concept, it's just unfamiliar to them.

People being confused by a concept after it has been taught to them suggests that either the concept is hard or the educational process inadequate. Confusion on initial introduction has nothing to do with difficulty.

It's not a hard concept, but it is a stupid one. Phone numbers for example you can take with you when you switch providers. Email has the provider hardcoded into your email address, thus every new provider means you have a new email.

The Web still lacks a first-class concept of a user identify that you can take with you across servers.

But if you own your own domain and use it for your own mail, you do take your identity with you? Isn't this what AT protocol is promising with Bluesky's identity system?

Phone numbers only work that way due to laws requiring number portability. Otherwise the provider is encoded in the number range.

It's funny you mention that because for a while the supposed deal breaker with Mastodon was the inability to migrate accounts (even though no other service let you do that).

But now you can, so we're on to the next whack-a-mole.

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