I found a major communication problem with public perception of Lemmy. they seem to think a community is tied to a particular instance
reddit.com
This is a big problem. It creates the illusion that /c/cats on one particular instance is the real /c/cats.
This is the root of re-centralization and it must be pulled out.
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I feel like this is how it will realistically happen though. People will flock to one instance and use that one community, otherwise it becomes too stagnated.
The best thing about federation is that if that hugely popular community's instance were to crash/go down, the community can just join another one. Sure it might take some coordination, but why not have one central place to hang out until it gets shitty?
Imagine youre at your favorite bar. They get new owners and then all their prices change. But hey guess what, you can make an exact copy of the same bar on a different instance! "Hey guys, lets all go to this new bar thats literally the same thing across the street!" and then everybody is happy.
This is really terrible news. This means Lemmy has no chance. It's just another Reddit. I hope this flaw is fixed and soon.
If the cool bar sells out and becomes a rip off. The community of that bar does up and leaves and then coherently as aunit join another bar.
What happens is, that bar community simply dies. It's members scatter. The end.
If that was like you said, Reddit community as a whole would already have left Reddit and we'd all be here.
This is a system killing bug.
Lemmy is seen as another Reddit, that's why people are coming over to use it as a potential alternative.
I'm also not convinced that the community would scatter entirely. Things might be scattering now, but this is more like the entire Earth being blown up for some space highway.
Whereas previously on Reddit, the community might splinter, with some parts going off to make their own subreddits, effectively moving to a new bar. It's happened before, with multiple subs.
/r/anime_titties was created due to issues with how /r/worldnews was moderated, /r/curatedtumblr was created due to issues with bots and inactive moderation on /r/tumblr, so on.
But moving subreddits is a far cry from moving to a whole other site, with its own communities, quirks, and issues, where they might be losing out on creature comforts, and the identity that they've built up on Reddit.
What does scatter really mean in the threadiverse? You and me sit in different bars, and can communicate and see the same communities, so it doesn't really matter if we are "scattered" or all on the same instance, since we still see and can communicate on the same places.