At first it was
“You only need one account, it’s like an email, they all federate with each other”
I was reeeaally excited for the prospect. (I still am btw)
But now it’s more like
“your account here can see that instance and that one too – but it’s buggy so sometimes it takes time to sync – anyway you cannot see that one for that one you need a distinct account-- oh and if that instance decide to defederate then you’ll need another account for there too”.
I’m still into the Fediverse, it’s just we still have things to figure out.
The good thing is I think most of these issues are a design issue that can be solved client side rather than fundamental flaws in the architecture.
For example, if you go to comment on a Beehaw thread and the app just showed some kind of prompt, e.g. “Sign-up to Beehaw or an instance federated with Beehaw to comment on this sublemmy” I think it would feel pretty straightforward.
All the confusion with how federation works is something a well designed app could explain to users as they explore. Obviously it will just take time for the platform to mature to this stage.
So much this. Defederation is a catastrophic issue for an average user in its current form, as the interactions fail totally silently.
Give us simple but informative warnings on reading threads, warnings when trying to post, warnings when trying to subscribe, and warnings when our subscriptions become defunct. Then the user can make informed decisions about either looking for new communities, or maybe moving to a different instance.
