@Gargron People site it as being Mastodon because they aren't used to multiple servers anymore.

Almost like you should add a box to your sign up page that points to Join Mastodon saying something like "try looking for a server that is more focused on your interests!"

@Gargron Have you thought about refocusing efforts to make Mastodon more lightweight and easily scalable, like some other projects have done?

If not, maybe close registrations until you're confident you can handle more. If someone is looking to get into Mastodon it won't take long for them to find similar instances.

@Gargron https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(red_social) Mediante este link pude acceder a su servidor

@Gargron well, there's one, but you did say you were against it... closing regs and having a message pointing at joinmastodon.org's picker instead

@Gargron the thing i've been seeing is that, because people are so used to monolithic, homogenous social media platforms, they assume mastodon.social is "the" mastodon, not even aware that other instances exist, or are too intimidated by the idea to try them out

whenever i suggest the fedi to people, i always emphasize the fact that there are many instances to choose from, but i can see how some might not understand or be overwhelmed by the idea if they're exploring on their own

@Gargron"I don't even know how people are finding mastodon.social specifically"

think of your server as The EU, there are enough inhabitants but migrants keep flowing in without an invite

@Gargron why don’t you add one? A redirect to joinmastodon if someone tries to sign up on mastodon.social?

@Gargron I think it would be good to start promoting some of the other servers to those on mastodon.social to entice/encourage them to switch so that there's more bandwidth for new users. I'll start looking for another server to join. Not because I don't like your server, but so there's a little more room for others. Thanks for letting us know of the usage concerns.

@Gargron Since people are coming to mastodon.social directly, putting a message there would make sense!

@Gargron When I did a websearch for Mastadon, mastodon.social was the first link to pop up. Is there a was to change servers? I can move to a different one if that will help alliviate the traffic on yours?

@GargronMaybe redirecting people to a simple instance picker when they click signup on mastodon.social could work.

@Gargron One of the Reasons is through search engines like Google or Duckduckgo

When i search for Mastodon or something, most search results point to mastodon.social either directly or very close, while seeing and joining other instances can be a dozen clicks away

@Gargron

This server is listed on the Mastodon Web page and even came top in web searches on various engines.

Because of the amount of potential subjects available to share and discuss, it would help if alternative media could create their own dedicated servers.

I am disabled and bed bound most of the time. Otherwise I would set up a server myself.

Carers tend to not be able to help. Yet, they're mostly obese... from gaming and eating pizzas!

@Gargron it's because it's the master server and it's called collocation