I don’t feel like we’re ever going to get past that until we can make the sign up process very nearly effortless. Reading about signing up for an account on the fediverse can be a lot of new info. Choosing an instance can feel like a lot when new to the fediverse and at the point that it becomes something difficult or confusing, a lot of people just lose interest.
I agree. I am a techie, have been following Lemmy for quite a while before the Reddit exodus. When I made my account, first I had to understand that each instance manages its own accounts and there are many instances. My initial thought was to look for one of the higher population instances, but I read that this was not necessarily the best idea. Then I searched out why its better to pick an instance outside the high population ones and that whatever instance I picked, I could view/comment/vote on posts from other instances. I don’t have a problem doing research, but I don’t know anyone who is not a techie that would continue past my first question, and that is a serious problem for adoption.