Why do I feel like narrowing down the options would not be that bad?

Perhaps because you miss Microsoft or Apple? In a rather misdirected way?

Half the point is there are multiple ways to do things - and mind, Windows is like that too (you can get to some settings though the new Control Panel, the old Control Panel, the Regedit, the Powershell…). Just about the only thing in Windows you are forced only one vision of is the desktop itself, but as soon as you double-click an icon, all bets are off.

Also if what you want is getting behind “tried and tested, universally accepted technologies”… that’s what sysvinit, ALSA, X11 and automake / build-essentials; no need for systemd, Pulseaudio, Wayland and Snaps. Pulseaudio was basically a stillborn deformed baby whereas I’ve never seen ALSA fail since 2002 (to the point even today I have to “fix” Flatpak not having audio on Pipewire unless Pulseaudio sits behind it by just seating both of them behind ALSA). I don’t even have to begin on Wayland, it started as just vaporware; Systemd is largely an attempt to microsoft-ize Linux system management; and Snaps make me want to snap.

As for newbies… others have addressed the point but honestly, if someone gets scared and whiny at the “choose your starter” screen of the game, they’re not gonna last any in a Pokémon game nor would I want them around whining about things they couldn’t even be bothered to be here for.

Let’s see, so we covered how we are a Nazi bar

You lost me there. You didn’t even hook me enough for the piefed part!

Ideally on a platform similar to Gmail in its decentralized nature

Really? This is the key to understanding that you don’t even know what you’re talking about.

But Lemmy isn’t one of those platforms. Right?

Not for content but that wasn’t what you asked for.

I migrated an account loooong ago and the only thing that didn’t copy/transfer by themselves was my posts. Dunno how much better it has gotten since then but what “makes” the account is so far quite easily exportable and importable.

Multicommunities

Doesn’t mbin already have that?

The only thing that is making me hold out on this experiment is because I am 100% sure that some people will see their posts on a community they never interacted on and they will panic on the grounds of “mah privacy” or something silly like that.

Don’t hold out out of that. There are idiots everywhere and they should not be taken as a good driving force for anything.

Half the point of the Fediverse is that your activity is public. It’s the entire point of why have activity with a community or instance in the first place. Heck, it’s “kinda” the name of the protocol: “ActivityPub”.