The biggest problem is it really isn't all that clear what the pros and cons are various instances are, and the truth is that for the most part with the exception of a few particular instances it really doesn't matter.

What might make the most sense is to have a website people can sign up on and then it just registers their account on one of a few instances to spread the load. Obviously that list I would have to be curated so it didn't include obvious problematic instances,but it wouldn't be that hard to do that. And that would make it as easy as threads is which basically is just an instance when all said and done.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And even if you do understand the pros and cons, it can be complicated because all these instances have differences and you have to figure out which one has the things you want and potentially make compromises.

Eg, I knew I absolutely must have downvotes and several instances disable those. I wanted to be federated with both lemmy.world and beehaw (and also lower my risk that beehaw is gonna defederate my instance in the future). I wanted as large of an instance as possible because by "fun" design, the "all" feed gets better the bigger the instance (IMO a design flaw), as does the ease of subscribing to communities (being first to subscribe is harder).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Something that would make it massively easier is portable/decentralised identities, or at least easy account migration. This should go for communities as well so that a community can exist independently of an instance, or be migrated to another instance with subscribers being redirected seamlessly.