I think you’re spot on with those hurdles. I’m somewhat techy (not nearly as much as many on here), and even I found it to be a major turn off for a long time before I finally decided to figure it out.
The way I would approach this if I was trying to improve it would be to create a way for people to essentially skip the instance selection process. Perhaps instance owners could opt in to this pool of “open servers” let’s call them. The user would create an account on a neutral website created for this onboarding purple, and by default there would be a checked box for “automatically select server”. It would sign them up for an instance based on their IP address and the size of the instance to try and spread out population a bit.
If you want more control, you uncheck the box and it gives you more things to select from like region, population size, and anything else relevant, and then gives you a list of servers fitting your criteria and you pick the one you want.
Boozilla@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Lemmy’s barriers to entry are a problem, there’s no getting around that. Personally I don’t think they are that bad and requiring a bit of effort / research is, oddly, in some ways, kind of a good thing…? The people who want to be here have put in at least a little work. But you make a very valid point. It needs to be easier and more intuitive. I would also point out that reddit sucks for new users, too. People are constantly complaining on there about how hard it is to get a new account going because of prerequisite karma, wildly varying sub rules, etc.
frunch@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I realize I’m a bit late to the conversation, just wanted to say i agree with your sentiments.
I kinda felt that the whole tech world was a little better when it had a certain gatekeeping element, in that you had to know how to operate a computer to at least some degree to do anything with the Internet. While that does reduce the amount of potential users dramatically in its own right, it also cuts down on the signal-to-noise ratio similarly. Giving everyone phones didn’t necessarily make the Internet a better place, imo. But it also has given a voice to many who never would have had one (for better or worse, as well)…
Not every place needs an enormous user base to make it worthwhile or enjoyable. Too many comments def leaves you feeling like you don’t have a voice, but i guess too few and you wonder if anyone’s listening…
Boozilla@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I mostly agree. I don’t want a “highly exclusive, only for elites” type of vibe (and I’m not saying that you do). But yes, there’s probably a sweet spot of “obstacle course” to get here somewhere. Not that I claim to know what that is in precise terms.