I like what Isopod did, linking them directly to a instance.
The only way to catch the average joe is to hold their hand and get them to content as quickly as possible. While linking them to the largest instances may not be the healthiest for decentralization, it’s going to give newcomers the best experience.
A lot of redditors, I’d even say the majority now-a-days, use the app. While a lot of the Lemmy apps are great. I wish there was one that guided you through the entire signup process.
It’s an excuse to not try something new. The real problem for the majority of them is that it’s a new platform that isn’t Reddit. That’s it. Finding communities people hang out in here isn’t a problem, they just aren’t familiar with the platform like they are on Reddit and don’t want to so they make up the excuse that it’s “complicated” and try and find ways to back it up, like thinking too hard about servers.
Really it has nothing to do with servers or the federated model at all, and has everything to do with aversion to new stuff and new places they don’t know as well yet.