Edmundo Ruiz Ghanem
dannysullivanWas explaining to my family how no one "owns" #Mastodon & even with different instances, it all works. "But it's so confusing!" I said yes, right now it can be. So was email, at first. People on AOL didn't intuitively know how people on Prodigy would get their email. They quickly learned plus systems adapted to get easier. You know someone's email address? Great, now you're on email with them even though they're on a different email "instance." Mastodon is like a big giant public email system.
tom o’connor@dannysullivan the email analogy is one of the easiest for explaining it I think
Bill Scully 
@dannysullivan your example really make it really easy for me to explain. Thanks!
Average Amy@dannysullivan wow Prodigy haven’t thought about that in a while
Doug BlankThe email analogy is even better than you suggest!
I remember some of the first email I sent from my college dorm room via CompuServe dialup. You had to provide "routing" in the email address so that it new how to get to another "instance"!
It looked something like:
hubhost!middlehost!edgehost!user@uucpgateway.somedomain.example.com
@dsblank Right? Something like that would make anyone think “it’ll never work” and then things catch up and it does
David “the Talking Skull” Fox🌻@dannysullivan @dsblank I remember routing emails from the 1980s when I was at Lucasfilm. It was notoriously unreliable, with email being dropped at any one of multiple server hops. I could get an email from someone in another company, but if I replied, it wouldn't get to them. So frustrating.
Goran Majić@dannysullivan Mastodon could be the first good Social Media project for Google without owning it... but helping out with some cash and SEO.
Jay@dannysullivan I've tried to use email to explain open federation to people in the past, and it's best to remember these 2 truths: 1) people absolutely hate email, and 2) people generally have no idea how email works anyway.
Daigoro Toyama 
@dannysullivan Another analogy, which may work better with the elderly, is mobile phones. You have a Verizon phone. I have a T-Mobile phone. You and I can call each other.
Ernie Smith@dannysullivan We’ve been making this argument for a while, but it’s not going through!
Perhaps “Google+, but for the entire internet” might work?
@ernie well, I think it's less argument as much how things will evolve. I imagine some instances will develop to make things even easier for general people to get going while some specialized communities will continue to bring in those with similar interests. And the underlying software will make it all easier, too.
@dannysullivan I admit I’m thinking about the many arguments I’ve seen with tweeters who think this is confusing. :)
Dean Lewis🧋@dannysullivan it would be interesting to see something a little like Google buzz, but Mastadon
Something very Google, but the fediverse
Other major tech companies, small businesses or community groups could do likewise and call it whatever they choose, with no "Google never gets social media right", as It wouldn't matter when we're all Federated.
Kübra Oğurtanı 
@dannysullivan email analogy is also perfect for explaining the concept grandma pitch 