I chose not to mention the issues that were already mentioned in the Mastodon thread like the 15K active user requirement allowing only large servers to qualify, which still lets a few big players dominate the network. My idea is based on the assumption that random people who aren’t interested in the Fediverse discover Mastodon by being directly linked to posts and accounts on Mastodon, rather than by being linked directly to spreadmastodon.org without knowing what is on the site. Therefore, the instance someone is linked to would be the instance they want to sign up on. I think the best solution would be to let individual instances deploy this application on their own instance and have the “Create Account” button direct to it (instead of the standard Mastodon sign up flow). Instances will customize the sign up destination/recommended accounts to their own instance, so users will still be distributed across many instances while enjoying a simple and consistent sign up process.