Mastodon servers are separate entities, too. The fact that they communicate with each other doesn’t change that, and the persistent desire that folks here have to imagine otherwise is a hurdle to adoption.
The mental model is of a central space that instances grant or bar access to, but that’s simply not how the technology actually works. Too much effort has gone into trying to make ActivityPub-enabled websites look like something they’re not (centralized social media), while totally ignoring what they are: small forums and microblogs that have optional access to other forums and microblogs.
Mastodon is web server software. “Mastodon” doesn’t exist. It’s an illusion. And the fact that everyone keeps trying to sell this illusion is exactly why there are all of these broken expectations and hurdles.
Yes, perhaps. But I suspect that still distracts from the fact that we’re trying to sell an illusion with the fediverse, and I personally believe that that is a mistake. So many issues people voice about their experience here come from the design of everything emulating Big Social, and Big Social is centralized.
Aping the design language of centralized social media and then trying to get anyone other than enthusiasts on board is never going to work.
One of the ways we do this is by referring to “Mastodon” and “Lemmy” as if they are places you can go to, websites you can use. This is why I chose phpBB as my reference point. I’ve used WordPress and Joomla in the past, with less impact. We don’t and have never spoken about phpBB as a singular location. You would respond to someone suggesting you “use phpBB” with, at the very least, a confused look. Or, if you didn’t know what it is, you’d ask them “what is that?” and they’d tell you “forum software”, revealing that their request of you was absurd. “Get an email address” is, at the very least, something that isn’t a nonsensical request. Websites demand it of us all of the time.