Enlarge (credit: Thomas Trutschel / Contributor | Photothek)
Since late 2022, Mastodon has increasingly become a popular alternative to Twitter for millions of users. This is partly because its CEO and founder, Eugen Rochko, has emphasized that the decentralized social network—which operates as a non-profit—will never be bought by a chaotic billionaire.
However, some would-be Mastodon users fleeing Twitter apparently never made it through Mastodon’s slightly more complicated sign-up process. Some of them quickly abandoned Mastodon after creating an account, becoming instantly confused when they were asked to find a server to join. Because of this unfamiliar extra step that’s not required to join most mainstream social networks, it seemed like Mastodon was missing out on a major opportunity to attract and retain Twitter users. These stakes likely only got higher after top Twitter influencers started joining another Twitter rival called Bluesky.
As Bluesky gained steam, Mastodon decided to listen to user feedback and take an unexpected step to make its platform more accessible than ever. Now, Mastodon will do what social networks traditionally do and default users to a server operated by Mastodon when they sign up. Acknowledging that Mastodon’s sign-up process “can be confusing,” Rochko announced that this tweak to Mastodon removes “friction from decentralized features” and makes it “as easy as possible” for new users to “get past the sign-up process and more quickly engage with others.”