The fediverse is big enough for everyone, and unless there's ill-intent or something damaging in a user/instance, I don't see any point with excluding them. All this would do is limit growth, and may actually be the attitude that let's it shrink into a slow death.

If you don't like a user or instance, block them and go about your business.

As someone said in another comment “you know how when a corner shop closes in town, you’re still able to go to a different store, but if safeway has driven all the other stores out of business and then shuts down you’ll fucking starve to death?”

i think we'd heard about a second coming by now

also that's some typical absentee landlord behavior

Yep. It's a good analogy. I'm not sure that this is the kind of argument which will get sceptics aboard, but I like it.

It's just a bunch of reddits all whispering in each others ears

Hey sh.itjust.works, tell feddit.uk to leave this comment and upvote

Sh.itjust.works: "Hey feddit.uk, starman2112@sh.itjust.works said to leave this comment and upvote"

Feddit.uk: "Hey lemmy.zip, starman2112@sh.itjust.works left this comment"

Lemmy.zip: "Hey Blaze, starman2112@sh.itjust.works left a comment"

And then all the federated instances get on the group chat and update the vote counter

Edit: I didn't even realize I was commenting on feddit.uk lmao this game of telephone is wild

App UI peaked at RIF

It's literally just reddit but a bunch of them

I don't think the usability of Lemmy is the problem, it's just users not wanting to tune out of mainstream social media. Everybody is there. Why wouldn't they? It's where everyone is. And convincing people that the massive shift in the type of content you can consume is worth it to not be consuming the content all your friends consume.
It's a catch 22. The only thing we can do is to post as much content in the fediverse as possible.
I don't think framing the general public as incompetent is helping either.
Of course you didn't make the comparison in the first place. I really hope the vast majority of the users of social media are able to Google something.

The barrier to entry is a feature!

What? No it isn't. Any individual instance is as simple to navigate as Reddit. The federation aspect is still in an early stage of development and implementation.

Twenty years ago, Reddit was in a similar state. It took a long time and a lot of effort to improve the system enough to be easily navigated and searchable (and then more time to mangle these features in the name of monetization).

But the idea that federated instances being difficult to traverse and filter against are intentional is utterly bogus.

I want to hang with people who are at least smart enough to tie their shoes

If you're not navigating Lemmy via VIM, you are literally a baby who shits himself and needs someone to change his diaper.

They were waiting longer for Him to come the first time, soooo

I was very supportive of Beehaw defederating from lemmy.world early. It's lovely.

What about PugJesus and that squid guy?

Wow. You're very much not understanding - I'm definitely not saying it's intentional. It's a take on the "It's not a bug, it's a feature" notion.

I'm saying that signing up for Lemmy not being as one-size-fits-all intuitive as Web 2.0 social media is a net benefit because anyone who tries to sign up, gets confused SO easily, and then frustrated and gives up is not the kind of person we want taking up server space on a Lemmy instance.

All I want is keep scrolling new funny. Lemmy gives me that.

most religions are still waiting for the first time.

hell yeah it did.

Exactly the same. And I still don't know anything about this place after 2 years. At least here I bothered to create a profile unlike reddit where I was just browsing and never posting anything

As long as you can clear the single minor technical barrier to entry you're welcome here. It may be the lowest of hurdles, but Reddit threw all their hurdles away a while ago and just let anyone capable of moving forward on a flat surface in.

And bots. Don't forget the bots

Good thing we're right