This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.

Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.

What can we do?

  • Ofiuco@lemmy.cafe
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    3 hours ago

    Yeah but you have to see it through the normal-user eyes, for them just creating a new account is a whole ordeal, then they see that ordeal makes them investigate the server before picking and then it turns out they picked wrong… For them that’s that and they delete the app (never deleting the account, mind you), branding the whole lemmy experience under whatever server they picked first.

    If there was some sort of… Quiz? That could help them pick… But a brutally honest one, since some instances have pretty extremists opinions, new users have to know what they are dealing with.

    • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
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      1 hour ago

      I could see merit to that argilument if the sign-ups process was kind’ve a pain, but honestly it’s so easy to create an account on Lemmy it’s hard to give that too much credence. Most servers just want a username and a password, and many don’t even require an email to verify. If putting in a username and password somewhere else because they didn’t like their first instance is too much for them, that’s a pretty flighty user to begin with, and they would probably leave for a host of other reasons too.

      Saying that, a better way to narrow down that initial choice of server would not go amiss, but ultimately people will need to understand that this is all run by volunteers and there may be more bumps than a corporate controlled platform, but the other advantages (if they appeal to this theoretical user) are worth it.

      Even with a better server picking tool, and even if they pick a server they like the first time, it’s possible that server has to shut down some day due to unforeseen circumstances, and that user will have to either accept that they have to create a new account somewhere, or decide that’s not an ideal UX and never come back, which would be a shame, but impossible to prevent.