"Everyone says you can use any instance with any account so I tried logging in with instance A account on instance B and it doesn't even work."
Words like decentralized, interoperability or federated doesn't mean anything to these people. We need good infographics to convey the idea correctly without misunderstandings.
People are staying away from Lemmy because they don't understand why its different from classic social media. From the outside they see many divided platforms instead of the unifying it's actually doing.
Most people only switch and change because of the trends and not so much because they understand how lemmy is good and why it will benefit them in the long run. People even get angry when you suggest to spend 5 minutes to learn the basics claiming it's not user friendly. Among all the things that may contribute to this i think people are too used to get products showed in their face.
Where have people advocating for everything in one sub been in the past decade? Single subs and centralization have been a problem on reddit since the beginning