[stormbrew]

You can just put that full name in the search bar on your own instance and follow them from it. You don't have to go to their instance at all.

I mean, I'm not saying that mastodon is super duper easy to use for everyone but in this particular example you seem to be going out of your way to make it more complicated than it is.

If the thing you found on hn was a link to their profile your flow would make sense, but if you have an id@domain the flow is really simple and basically the same as other similar things (ie. put it in your email client).

[jayknight]

I was replying in context to the comment above about typing in the handle, and I would put copy/paste in the same category.

With email addresses, you have the mailto: link, which works pretty well so you don't have to copy paste. Maybe we need a follow: url scheme that browsers know what to do with.

[stormbrew]

I wouldn't be surprised to see that come into existence now honestly.