hello @evanprodromou , since you asked for a story how people join fediverse, here is my road I had (briefly).
I've heard about fediverse from strangers, seen your interviews & people reviewing it on yt ( thanks @gadgeteer )
Joined small instance of Diaspora. Saw that it doesn't use ActivityPub & not have much connections across bigger fediverse.
Then, since I prefer FLOSS, I joined "biggest" Friendica server (that been listed on some catalog of fediverse instances), since Friendica seemed more versatile, advanced and cross-compatible. Unfortunately to find out that server was full of spam accounts, and has not been federated/configured properly well.
I didn't gave up on my fediadventure, and continued search for a better host. Found few like minded techy servers, hatchyderm wetdryworld etc, tried to register there - wasn't able too 😞 They were either invite only, or with manual approval during registration that never happened in timeable manner, & they didn't allowed my email provider 😒 (unfair discrimination btw, an account creation should not demand email and email should be optional)
Continued search, went to official mastodon page, picked there medium+ sized recommended\suggested certified server with quality guarantees, with automatic registration. Here I am, works fine now, thanks to everyone who made it possible.

There are things I like here (& opposites, but that's for another rant).
Currently looking for good desktop or web client with better UI (I never liked twitter/microblogging, more of a Reddit person) & better, less noisy moderated feed view UI. (I wonder if I should look at commercial clients)

Follow me if you interested in #decentralization .

#Fediverse #activitypub