I jumped on Mastodon because the thought of being able to run everything myself and still interact with everyone I knew was a huge plus.

...but, I realize this is a rare train of thought. Most people don't want to invest their time in running everything themselves.

And then there's some who just want to communicate with others and don't care about federation or instances or all of that, they just want something that works.

None of these viewpoints are wrong.

@KS THIS. A MILLION TIMES THIS.

@KS I agree! That's why I try to keep mastodon.social registrations open nowadays.

@KS I think the most likely death of the unique culture the fediverse has will be from the ease of recommending one instance to start off on. I think we aren't realizing the value of redundancy though. We feel that either we should recommend one general instance, or figure out exactly the niche interests of the user and point them to a specific instance. Both are problematic.

@KS Instead of "just join mastodon.social" why can't we say "Join one of these 10 general interest instances, it doesn't matter which. We just suggest multiple instances so everyone doesn't crowd onto one". There should be a category of larger, general interest instances and I think we are too stuck in one massive instance vs one tiny niche instance for every interest to see that.

@KS I think there is wisdom in the harry potter sorting hat, or astrological signs or sports teams in that what category you fit into/choose appears to be personalized and gives you enough of a group identity so you get "we are the underdogs" "we are the recluses" "we are ravenclaws" without making the choice feel constrictive and constraining to the actual differences among the people in the group.