Yes, I recently created a Pixelfed account and I definitely balked at the “pick and instance” step. When I joined lemmy (using connect) it didn’t ask me to pick an instance to create an account with and eased me into the idea of the fediverse. As a reddit refugee that only left because of morals, I absolutely felt like a fish out of water but I persisted. Others don’t wish to persist with something confusing or different. One one hand, that’s fine with me, I don’t want to share a platform with people like that anyway. On the other hand, if it’s not at least a little popular and easy to swallow for new users, growth will be impacted.