Sometimes, people on Facebook don't know the Fediverse exists.

@hpod16 EU citizen-only .. That is not the fediverse at all. That is a fortress Europe online.

@moftasa
Yeah, what the Commission answered here isn't quite what they asked.
But with a generous reading, still an opportunity to promote the Fediverse.

@hpod16 I agree I ended up on Reddit rabbit holes and documentation pages to learn some things. This user type will however not search and if they can't ask their friends or family for help, they give up.

Still, steps are taken to make this process more user friendly, which is great!

@lucien @hpod16

The Fediverse has a great collection of techies creating the protocols and infrastructure. What we're missing is the folks helping regular people use it.

Hopefully folks like Hannah will start creating that layer. Not just through advocacy, but by hiring staff dedicated to helping people use it.

@jztusk @lucien
I think Hannahs like Hannah Aubry (@haubles) are key to bringing the most important aspect of the Fediverse front and centre: the community vibes.

@jztusk @haubles @lucien @hpod16 ...and @hannah

@hpod16

@lucien also, you have to bear in mind that when we reply to public comments, it isn't just for the benefit of the one person who commented, but for anyone else who may be lurking in the comments sections.
And: usually you have to hear about a new product a number of times before you try it out. So, many baby steps, one big goal.

@hpod16 the world was not built in a day and there's certainly more interest from EU users these days, which is great!

@AnachronistJohn @haubles @jztusk @hannah @lucien
Are we just tagging other Hannahs now?

@hpod16@eupolicy.social Oh, that's cool!

@szkodnix any opportunity to promote Fedi
(Although on second reading I admit that could have been better phrased, they are asking for an EU-only platform and Fedi is global...)

@hpod16@eupolicy.social Well... Fedi servers can theoretically defederate with some non-EU servers but I'm not sure if that kind of server exists ​​

@hpod16 Lately I'm not happy by much stuff EU championed, especially on the digital world but I love this! Especially because instead of trying and failing to build and push their own solution as governments tends to do they promote a grassroots movement.

@lucien @hpod16 What's wrong with #Mastodon's #UX? I think it's great. I find it to be about as usable as #X, maybe even less confusing due to the lack of feature creep.

@jztusk @lucien @hpod16 You should get in touch with @FediTips.

@realcaseyrollins @lucien
for me, it took some time to get used to the federated nature.
For example, if I am on my EUPolicy server and I open a link to a mastodon.social profile, I won't be logged into my EUPolicy account and can't directly interact. I have to find them in my search bar. It's not a huge thing, but it lead to some hang-ups.
I was shameless enough to admit I was struggling with this, and people in the comments just walked me through the process. Good community here.

@realcaseyrollins @hpod16 this are the top ones that I observed:
- Server selection onboarding. This is number one, you'll find plenty of posts online with confused users. Though Mastodon works on improving it soon it seems.
- Limited search and discovery (bottlenecked by the server)
- Broken uploads because of dead CDNs
- Confusing 'DM' feature

These all make sense to me and are ok, but casual Joe will struggle.

@hpod16 The state of things. X has 650 Million Active users and Mastodon has 2.5 million. There is a reason. #Musk #Mastodon #SocialMedia

@MissWarcraft I would say there are many reasons.
I also think that Mastodon just doesn't have a large marketing budget, that would be useful to get people on board.
That, and I think the initial step of choosing a server can be offputting