"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.
For sure, and I genuinely don't blame anyone. I've spoken a few times about the difficulty of marketing federated social media.
Also, this place feels like exactly like early Reddit, tech savvy, close-nit, united but also divided. Lemmy will get bigger, diversifying the platform, increasing it's likeability for a wider audience.