How did Lemmy.world become more popular than Lemmy.ml?
I don't understand how Lemmy.world developers managed to surpass both Lemmy.ml and Beehaw.org instances in user activity.
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I don't understand how Lemmy.world developers managed to surpass both Lemmy.ml and Beehaw.org instances in user activity.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. If I understand correctly, it functionally shouldn't matter which instance you use, because the experience is supposed to be the same across them all?
Does it matter that I'm on world? Is there a reason I might prefer a different instance? Something I'm missing?
A site admin can “defederate” from any other instance, effectively cutting the users of that instance off. Example: beehaw.org defederated from Lemmy.world, and now they’re both completely isolated communities.
So that could be the reason you’d want to create accounts on other instances.
As the other person mentioned, it matters to an extent because the admins of your instance have the ability to cut ties with other instances (defederation). They also have the ability to make instance wide actions like banning a community belonging to that instance (in the same way Reddit admins can ban a subreddit).
Some instances will naturally be stricter about what types of communities are allowed and what types of instances they will federate with. For that reason, it's important the instance you join aligns with your values, e.g. you probably don't want to join an instance that tolerates alt right communities.
aside from moderation stuff, smaller instances tend to be faster and, ironically, more reliable in the shorter term, as they're not constantly getting hugged to death
and in the long term while they may be more vulnerable to running out of cash and shutting down, they're less costly to maintain overall, so as long as people chip in that's not as big of a concern
Smaller instances could probably be run entirely on aws free tier as well.