Mastodon is interoperable, decentralized, operated by a nonprofit, lively, and, ACTUALLY, isn't hard to use. So why is everyone championing Threads as the main Twitter alternative?
I think the UI/UX is really good now, and comparable to Twitter, and better then Threads/Bluesky. Unfortunately most don’t get that far, because onboarding on the fedi is still a very big pain point and the very first thing people have to overcome. Also actually using the fedi, people linking other instances and whatnot really breaks the experience when you wonder why you’re suddenly on an identical looking site but are signed out. I think decentralization is simply a requirement for freedom, but also it is a confusing concept for onboarding that we haven’t quite solved yet. I’m optimistic that these things can improve though.
I think I’ve started learning that I’m kind of ok with that barrier to entry… I mean, it’s pretty fucking low. It’s not that difficult to understand if you are willing to take 5 mins to learn how it works.
Don’t want to be gatekeeper-y or anything, but maybe if you can’t pass that simple test, then the overall discourse is better off without you in it.
How low the barrier is depends on how good is your prior knowledge. If you are a millennial that remember the internet before Facebook, it’s probably very easy to understand the gist. For older people who never got into how computers work, or younger people that only saw the internet through smartphone apps, that barrier may be higher than we feel.
That high barrier of entry is going to automatically keep out most non-techy people, and they tend to be a big source of entertaining content out there. Generally if you discount any bad UX as “takes only a bit effort to learn” that just means it’s not user friendly and needs a lot of improvement.
I think the UI/UX is really good now, and comparable to Twitter, and better then Threads/Bluesky. Unfortunately most don’t get that far, because onboarding on the fedi is still a very big pain point and the very first thing people have to overcome. Also actually using the fedi, people linking other instances and whatnot really breaks the experience when you wonder why you’re suddenly on an identical looking site but are signed out. I think decentralization is simply a requirement for freedom, but also it is a confusing concept for onboarding that we haven’t quite solved yet. I’m optimistic that these things can improve though.
I think I’ve started learning that I’m kind of ok with that barrier to entry… I mean, it’s pretty fucking low. It’s not that difficult to understand if you are willing to take 5 mins to learn how it works.
Don’t want to be gatekeeper-y or anything, but maybe if you can’t pass that simple test, then the overall discourse is better off without you in it.
How low the barrier is depends on how good is your prior knowledge. If you are a millennial that remember the internet before Facebook, it’s probably very easy to understand the gist. For older people who never got into how computers work, or younger people that only saw the internet through smartphone apps, that barrier may be higher than we feel.
That high barrier of entry is going to automatically keep out most non-techy people, and they tend to be a big source of entertaining content out there. Generally if you discount any bad UX as “takes only a bit effort to learn” that just means it’s not user friendly and needs a lot of improvement.