I can see how your basic option would be a good way of easily balancing the load of new users across the federation by assigning them according to the current capacity of each server.

However, I think it is important that you as a user choose an instance you are able to align with. Best example: If you're not into it, you will have a pretty rough time on lemmygrad.ml.

I absolutely agree that the „Local“ button on the front page is weird. I don’t get how it’s useful and it kind of negates the „it doesn’t matter what instance you have your account at“ argument.

I’ve had a few instances where someone gives a link for a community and its not given in the right format so I can’t sign up to it (?it’s a server specific link - I still don’t know). This would be frustrating to the average user and another barrier. Let’s simplify these links and make them universal.

Going to a different server/instance should just have a button that lets you login with your main instance with one click. It's a real pain in the ass right now.

It's a slight architecture change and people will get it with time. When I first started on reddit I couldn't wrap my head around how a self text post worked but with time it made sense. Each Lemmy instance is like its own reddit front page but it houses its own communities.

Hello. I moved to Reddit with the Digg Exodus, and now I'm here. History does repeat itself.

I don’t think it’s a great idea to assign someone to a random server.

1. You don’t want a view instance to get all the traffic.
2. You want people to choose a server that fits their interests.

It’s just really hard to make something so centralized for something that’s meant to be the opposite.

We made a new instance at lemmy.pro to also be a high performance one - so we read this with great interest!

https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1113

https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1048

I think these two changes will fix things dramatically.

Someone should most definitly start some kind of sign-up service, where people can submit their instance, and their maximum user threshold, with the service dividing users equally. Instances should probably be sorted by language, and politically-oriented instances excluded from the service (looking at you lemmygrad.ml)

Doomscrolling is difficult right now. Images should be big enough, so that you can stay on Subscribed or All while looking at funny or cute pictures. Right now they're tiny and you have to click on them one by one.

This could all be done with Jerboa with zero input from the admins of individual instances.

Jerboa could send an "application" from each user that registers to the server it chose based on load and location, then inform the user once their account is approved and log them in, them of course getting an email from the instance letting them know where their profile resides.

That's great! Coming from a game designer / UX perspective, these were exactly my thoughts. The current process does not put the new user in the center, and the experience suffers accordingly. If lemmy wants to grow, this is one major aspect to improve (and I want it to grow!). The sign up process has probably the biggest impact on growth.

1. Sign up: Yes, make a basic default version and a less visible advanced option. Side benefit: Lemmy can choose where new users should (not) be registered, which allows some lemmy-wide load balancing. This can be achieved decentrally by individual instances accepting new registrations or not. Also do not talk about setting up an instance on a page directed to new users, who mostly just want to register an account. Make this option even less visible. People willing and able to set up a server will find the info. People unwilling and unable to understand advanced registration will be overwhelmed and put off by server talk.

2. Subscribed/Local/All: Also agreed, 'local' is the least useful option (is it even useful for anyone besides instance admins?) and should not be the default. I have worries making 'all' the default; people could get the impression their subscriptions do not work. How about this: Make 'all' the default for users with 0 subscriptions, and 'subscribed' the default for users with > 0.

3. Links between instances: I wish this was simpler and more usable. Currently I don't understand all the options and cases and cannot begin to describe the problem or propose a solution. I wish there was a non-techie way to post a link which works out of the box for anyone, no matter what instance they call their home.

Edit: I think I understand now how to make instance-independent cross-instance links to communities. Say you want to link to https://midwest.social/c/cats.

1. transform into "email-syntax": [email protected]
2. add /c/: /c/[email protected]
3. use it as a URL in a link: lemmy does the magic

I wrote: [lemmy does the magic](/c/[email protected])

I agree. Things need to be simple, intuitive, logical and as hassle free as possible.
That means everything: UI, signing up, configuring the service, everything. A user should just sign up , have an optional menu to choose topics and automatically the system should serve him a default page with two tabs or panes: All and Topics.
Then, by choosing a topic, the user could see content about that topic from various relevant servers, based on tags, flairs etc.
It also needs to play decently nice with social media.
Ads should be in regions that at hassle free and tag appropriately and clearly as ads.
Maybe an option for some communities to be private and subscription based.
Simplicity and ease of use is key.
A difficult, quirky system will stay niche or irrelevant and will die.