All these federated services suffer from similar well-publicized problems, but Calckey appears to offer one of the nicer user interface schemes so far. Though unrelated, maybe the rebrand can help build mindshare for Firefox.

In case anyone hasn’t seen the link:

https://wefwef.app/settings/install

The pitch for federalization gives the misleading impression that the system provides a universal (or at least portable) account mechanism. It seems to be a common point of uncertainty with users taking a look at the emerging platform.

From a usability standpoint, the sign-in process ought to be able to tell when someone is trying to join from a non-local instance, and provide means to redirect or authenticate them appropriately. Maybe something in the style of “Sign in with Google,” only simpler.

I think upcoming versions of Lemmy/Kbin are attempting to improve link behavior to make it less likely to unintentionally stray from your home instance.