No, but you don’t need to. You can interact with people from other servers on your own server. You can follow them, they can follow you, and it works as if you were all on the same server.
What? Could you explain further?
Here’s an everyday analogy: If you’ve got a SIM card for your mobile phone, you can only use it to get service from your phone provider. However, because phone providers talk to each other, you can use your phone to call people on totally different providers without having to do anything special.
Mastodon (and the wider Fediverse it is part of) are using this same idea, but for social networks. Your account works only on one server, but because your server talks to other servers your timeline can be full of posts from people on other servers. Your server acts as a gateway to the entire Fediverse, in the same way that your phone provider acts as a gateway to the entire phone network.
So, I only need one account?
Most people only need one account, although there are certain circumstances where some people may want to create multiple accounts.
Can people from other servers follow me?
Yes.
Can I follow people from other servers?
Yes.
Can I interact with people from other servers?
Yes.
Why is it so complicated? Why not just have one big server?
There are many really important reasons why the network is spread over thousands of servers.
What if I want to use features that are only available on a different kind of server? For example tracking my reading on BookWyrm?
If you just want to follow people from other types of server, you can do that from your Mastodon account. Go to the profile page of the account you want to follow and click Follow, or if their profile isn’t visible in Mastodon then paste their account address into the search box on Mastodon.
If you want to actually use features that aren’t available on Mastodon, such as the book database on BookWyrm, then you’ll need to set up a separate account on a server that has those features. In the example of BookWyrm, you would need to set up an account on a BookWyrm server.
If you do set up separate accounts, it’s a good idea to mention these on your Mastodon profile so people know to follow your other accounts too.
But I thought Pixelfed lets people log in with their Mastodon accounts?
No, it doesn’t. Pixelfed servers have an option on their websites called “Sign in with Mastodon”, but this is an inaccurate description. What it actually does is create a new Pixelfed account and automatically copies over settings from your Mastodon account. You end up with two separate accounts at the end of it (the original Mastodon one and the new Pixelfed one), and if you do the same thing again on other Pixelfed servers you will end up with even more Pixelfed accounts, all with info copied from your Mastodon account. None of these accounts are unified or connected in any way.