Before I left Reddit, I searched for alternatives and saw that people recommended Lemmy or Kbin. But I didn’t know what those things were. I assumed they were just Reddit clones hosted by someone else. I didn’t know that I could create an account on Kbin and interact with other posts in the Fediverse. I didn’t even know what the Fediverse was. So I was stuck with this decision of “do I try Lemmy or Kbin first?”
When I decided to try Lemmy, the first thing you need to do is sign up on an instance. People recommended beehaw.org, but that required filling out an application to join. That seems weird, since I never had to apply to read Reddit. I decided to try another instance (sh.itjust.works) but was worried that I was missing out on what people had recommended about other instances. Maybe I chose the wrong one? Maybe I should make an account on Lemmy.world instead?
It took me a little while to grasp the concept of federation and realize that it made no difference as an end user which instance I chose. I stuck with it, as did everyone reading this, but I think it’s fair to say that the average person has similar barriers to entry. We’ve overcome them, but many, many people will not.