I told somebody I know who knew about Reddit’s API changes about Lemmy. He has a master’s degree in Computer Science and works as a software engineer. But then, he told me that it’s too confusing to get into, even for someone like him. This is great feedback and I hope that these issues will be fixed in the coming months.
I have a master’s degrees, but I doubt that matters. My experience mirrors yours: five minutes (except for waiting times to get approved). I agree with your conclusion.
I tried signing up under multiple instances and they never went through. Finally got one though and it’s pretty easy for the most part. I do think the linking needs to work better as general kinks being you directly to that instance vs. viewing it from your own this requiring you to log in or go back to your insurance and try and find the post/community.