Yes! I think the reason people struggle with Mastodon is they implicitly understand that picking a server is, whether they want it to be or not, a reflection of their online persona, and they don’t know how to find or gauge servers to see if they might “fit”.

I think universities should immediately make official instances for students and faculty. At least in academic twitter circles having an official institutional home would probably help a ton with migration; it would feel like a natural place to be.