Making Mastodon More Accessible: The Platform’s New Onboarding Experience

Mastodon, the decentralized social media app, has announced a new onboarding experience to make it easier for users to sign up. Previously, in addition to choosing a username, users were required to select the instance or server where they wanted their account to live. This step, which is not necessary for centralized apps like Facebook or Twitter, was a barrier for potential users.

The new onboarding experience offers a default sign-up option that creates an account within the mastodon. social instance. While some may view this as Mastodon advertising its own server, the company sees it as a way to bring more users into the platform. The goal is to reduce the complexity of signing up, making it more accessible to those who may have been deterred by the previous process.

Mastodon has stated that it is important for the platform to be appealing on its own merits, and not just because of its ideology. The company believes that making the onboarding process easier is a key factor in attracting new users who may not already be interested in decentralization. By reducing the complexity of signing up, Mastodon hopes to make the platform more accessible to a wider audience.

As a user who recently signed up for Mastodon using the new default sign-up experience, the process was easy and didn’t feel limited to Mastodon’s own server. The user is considering moving their account to a different instance.

Meanwhile, BlueSky, a decentralized Twitter clone, is gaining traction. It remains to be seen which decentralized network will emerge as the dominant one. However, it is important to note that decentralized social media networks should ideally work together, as they are part of the same diversity.