Sure, but as soon as you realize that all your friends are getting their hair done at, say, .social salon, you try to join up with them and... WHAT? They're not accepting any new members at this time?
Fuck. This.
The whole instance thing is a barrier. Not a big barrier, but enough to turn off the 'if at any point this process confuses me it's not worth it' crowd. Any deviation from picking a user name and clicking 'Join' sends those people into a tailspin.