The email analogy just goes so far, because of mental models.
Yeah, those of us who have opinions on sudo vs doas will get it. Email is a protocol standard that allows different servers to exchange compatible data. Most people don’t conceptualize it like that; they conceptualize it like the postal service. The USPS, Royal Mail and others are one entity that most end users just handwave away as “in the mail” and their only concern is where do I go to send and receive my mail? Your mailbox is at the post office on the corner of Road st. and Boulevard ave. Your email inbox is at gmail.com. Gmail, or hotmail, or whatever, is your local post office for putting things “in the mail.”
Nobody conceptualizes social media like that. Social media is a place you go to be among other people. Back in my day we called them “Sites.” Myspace and Facebook were “sites.” Places you went. Now they call them “apps” but they’re still conceptualized as where the people participating in this culture are. Get it through the average Tiktokker’s head that you get the Loops app, and then you have to pick a server to connect that app to. “Just get me to Loops.”
Some servers are full, some you have to apply for, some are perfectly open to join. They all connect to each other, except they can choose not to, and choosing not to connect to each other is why some servers exist in the first place. We’re going to present you with a list of instances to join, you’ll be presented with the instance’s logo, which half of them left blank so you get a boilerplate image, a blue checkmark on every single one which carries no meaning it just looks social media-y, and the top sentence and a half of a description which is either default text or a description of the platform as a whole because it wasn’t explained to the instance admins what this description field was for.
So, new user who probably still isn’t sure how this works, make a decision about something that feels kind of abstract that we’ve done a really bad job of explaining.
The email analogy just goes so far, because of mental models.
Yeah, those of us who have opinions on sudo vs doas will get it. Email is a protocol standard that allows different servers to exchange compatible data. Most people don’t conceptualize it like that; they conceptualize it like the postal service. The USPS, Royal Mail and others are one entity that most end users just handwave away as “in the mail” and their only concern is where do I go to send and receive my mail? Your mailbox is at the post office on the corner of Road st. and Boulevard ave. Your email inbox is at gmail.com. Gmail, or hotmail, or whatever, is your local post office for putting things “in the mail.”
Nobody conceptualizes social media like that. Social media is a place you go to be among other people. Back in my day we called them “Sites.” Myspace and Facebook were “sites.” Places you went. Now they call them “apps” but they’re still conceptualized as where the people participating in this culture are. Get it through the average Tiktokker’s head that you get the Loops app, and then you have to pick a server to connect that app to. “Just get me to Loops.”
Some servers are full, some you have to apply for, some are perfectly open to join. They all connect to each other, except they can choose not to, and choosing not to connect to each other is why some servers exist in the first place. We’re going to present you with a list of instances to join, you’ll be presented with the instance’s logo, which half of them left blank so you get a boilerplate image, a blue checkmark on every single one which carries no meaning it just looks social media-y, and the top sentence and a half of a description which is either default text or a description of the platform as a whole because it wasn’t explained to the instance admins what this description field was for.
So, new user who probably still isn’t sure how this works, make a decision about something that feels kind of abstract that we’ve done a really bad job of explaining.