I don't think the Fediverse will surpass mainstream social media by any means. I genuinely don't believe there will be a day where any Fediverse platform will reach even a tenth of the userbase of its mainstream counterpart.
The current trend of Fediverse platforms seems to operate in this way: "make X ActivityPub compatible" where X is any existing or emerging mainstream platform. A good example is Loops which, I feel is completely disconnected from the TikTok userbase that it attempts to capture. TikTok is very popular precisely because of its addictive algorithm and I'm not sure if the ethics of Loops will follow in that direction.
Although the Fediverse population is small, I think it's pretty resilient at least. We're all here because of a shared ideal of "social media" that isn't owned by a single entity. Unless users outside the Fediverse share the same ideal, it is unlikely they'll stick around.
The three problems listed on your post have pretty much been the same for the past three years and I don't think anyone has made a good solution for it (otherwise, it would have blown up by now). There are so many suggestions like making a quiz or choosing a random instance but we all know those come with their own flaws. I don't know how many years it will take for us to solve this problem but I'm always happy to see new attempts at solving them. The funny thing though is that some of these solutions rely on centralization...
However, in my opinion, I think we are approaching the Fediverse wrong. The current expectation is it to eventually replace mainstream social media (it won't). There is an obsession with a grand narrative or even a utopia.
In my opinion, the "new" problem of the Fediverse should be this:
"How do you build a platform with decentralization first in mind?"
If we start thinking about this question, then problems like "choosing a server" should be irrelevant. I think about this question almost every day and I'm always on the look out for new platforms (both Fediverse and non-Fediverse) that hopefully aren't just "X but ActivityPub". I hope there will be more effort put into developing a platform where choosing an instance isn't thought to be a hindrance but is actually part of the experience. A platform where we aren't actively trying to "hide" decentralization.
The question might sound stupid for some but just try to think about how we're always chasing after mainstream social media and never really coming up with something original and unique where features are designed around decentralized interactions first.
I don't have the answers to this problem but I hope we can change the way we think about the Fediverse.
I know a lot of people mention plot but plotless movies are also really good. I watched all four of Elia Suleiman's feature-length films recently. They don't really have plot, character development, nor the most impressive cinematography. It does have good choreography though if that makes sense.
For those hosting their own PieFed instances, this is very easy to disable (I think it was ALLOW_4CHAN=True in the env). I turned it off because I didn't like the OCR scanning every upload and locking up my tiny 2 core server for a few seconds.
I remember in elementary school we had a lesson on sex organs. When I turned in my test paper, I curiously asked my teacher, "If the sperm is in the male, and the egg is in the female, how does the sperm transfer over?"
All she said was, "Well, what do you think?" To which I replied, "I don't know." Then I quietly returned to my desk. Later I discussed it with my friend and we concluded that a male must pee into a female. Because at the time, pee was the only thing we knew came out of the penis.
I remember this. Really crazy how this was all orchestrated. The girls were trained to be part of pranks unaware that they were going to commit murder at the end.
It's easy to make statements, suggestions, and opinions, but it's really hard to actually do things in practice.
We all want more people here. The question is "How?", and simply saying "Make good defaults" is easier said than done (what are good defaults?) and "good defaults" is too simple of an answer to a very complex issue.
The conversation has been stuck here for over a year already as very few people are actually willing to develop and test these solutions which takes a lot of resources too.
The irony of the situation is that a lot of these solutions that have been suggested also need a central authority. For example, people have suggested creating a central hub where everyone can sign up to. Another example is creating a little quiz which begs the question "Who decides which instances goes there?".
The best effort I've seen in trying to implement a solution are Reddit mirrors which aren't well-received because nobody likes talking to bots.
As a personal anectode on "lowering the barrier of entry":
Since I started this instance (ani.social), my goal in mind was to make it very easy for users to sign up. There's no manual approval here (except when it's being flooded with trolls). Only email verification is needed -- just like every social media platform.
But sometimes when new users sign up, they comment or post on communities in instances that defederated from us.
Now I have to think about how I'm supposed to explain defederation to people, and the moment I do try to explain, that's a big turn off for many.
Again, I'm not saying Lemmy can't improve (it can in a lot of ways), but it all boils down to developer resources and who's willing enough to test these solutions to see what works and what doesn't. On the other hand, it takes minimal effort to say "It needs to be better".
my bad g