This article really had me excited. I really wanted to click the "Join Mastodon" button at the bottom of the article.
But there isn't one.
But there isn't one.
Mastodon doesn't have that. Instead, you have to read a wall of instructions and explanations about all the reasons one doesn't simply sign up for Mastodon. Next, you're asked to make a life-changing decision about a concept you just learned about for the first time, assuming you bothered to read that entire wall of previously-mentioned text. That is all friction. It's almost like Mastodon doesn't want any users.
Not to mention that people are often (but not always) multifaceted. We like sports, but we also like gadgets. We like to participate but we also like to be entertained. We like music but we also like computer programming. We like video games, Broadway shows, going to the beach. We like both dogs and cats. But Mastodon wants us to choose one and only one thing. That's what's stopping the flow of more people to Mastodon. They need to fix this, and fast.
Not even sure what you're talking about with the "multifaceted" bit. There's nothing stopping you from following people posting about all of those topics at once, just like you can on Twitter. Go right ahead. If you're thinking you're limited to just following people on the same single-topic instance as you, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the network works.
As for "they need to fix this, and fast," presuming you actually do understand how federation works, then how do you propose it gets fixed without recentralizing everything?