In my opinion, criticisms of mastodon being unusable by the general public are over blown.
@codehag IMHO the only somewhat valid criticism is that the entire server concept is somewhat foreign to regular people. Mastodon's official website should just suggest a single server for them to join - but I get it's problematic.
@boskee @codehag How is the concept foreign? If you choose your internet access, telephone or Email it is the same - you have to choose which provider fits your needs best.
@Nefex @codehag Sure, but if you look at twitter, or even here, a lot of people do not understand the concept of servers. They want to have a single place, like twitter.com to register and operate from. The federated aspect is confusing and needs to be explained better.