Does federation have a bit of a learning curve? No doubt.
Is Lemmy buggy as heck? Absolutely.
But I don’t think that really justifies a lot of the comments I’m seeing in Reddit alternatives threads that it’s hard to figure out. The front page feed and sort options are very similar to Reddit. Searching for same-instance communities is not too difficult. Posting, commenting, and voting are all quite intuitive. What’s the problem?
My dude… YOU JUST DESCRIBED THE SIGNUP PROCESS FOR EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET BEFORE FACEBOOK APPEARED.
Ever heard of IRC? Instant messengers? Usenet? Mailing lists? FUCKING FORUMS?
People are nowhere near as stupid as you seem to think and those that are probably shouldn’t be interacting with other humans in the first place.
You’re describing an internet that doesn’t exist anymore and hasn’t for decades.