I found the comparisons to email to work best so far to explain Mastodon. The problem is it's usually followed by 'And? I'm not going to run my own server, that's beyond me. What is the difference between individual instances? How do I know which one to join? Should I maintain multiple identities across different instances?'
I usually don't have simple, sound bitey answers that appeal to non-techies.
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@MatejLach @cidney Actually choosing an instance is quite overwhelming and because many of them are defensive when they set out their rules (to put trolls off) they come across a little bit authoritarian and stifling. But once you're here it's easy enough.
It's much more social and much more diverse than other site, I feel.
@LydiaConwell
Ha! That's a very interesting point re instance selection that never really occurred to me but thinking about it, I am inclined to agree.
I had much more interesting interactions on here than I ever had over there for sure.
@cidney