The linked post shows how most non-tech people’s understanding of email is very very different from most of the people here.
If you want to get non-techy users, then there is absolutely no need to even use the word fediverse or to try to explain what any of this means. If you want to help a friend get onboard, just send them a link to sign up on the same server that you use, or a nice general purpose server. That’s it. They sign up, they use it, and THEN they can start to learn about fediverse shit if they care to.
"you know how you can’t talk to someone on Twitter.com from facebook.com? But you can email from your @gmail.com to someone with an @yahoo.com address?
That’s the difference, federated social media is like email in this way."
I’m mostly sure even my elderly parents understood it when I said it…
And you know how, when you subscribe to a mailing list, you will only receive new mail sent to the list if your server happens to “federate” with the sender’s server?
Oh wait, that’s not how e-mail works.
Email providers absolutely block other email providers who abuse their system.