Another thought I kind of had on it. In order to lower friction to join, for a private instance, it would be nice to have some kind of guest like where no account and no verification is needed for the hosts instance (and maybe add a toggle in the server settings to allow no verify join/temp/guest accounts), but then require an account to visit instances that require it. So for example, I could leave a link to my private/friends only instance in my old discord server I no longer use and specify no sign up to visit my instance. Getting people to try another platform has proven difficult. I think not having to make an account will help reduce that friction.
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Comment by @Data-Hoarderr