EDIT: we just crossed 30K 🥳
We are now at 28.5K users (see https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list). The top 10 instances also got a decent boost in user count. With the exception of beehaw.org which defederated, the Fediverse is thriving 🔥
EDIT: we just crossed 30K 🥳
We are now at 28.5K users (see https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list). The top 10 instances also got a decent boost in user count. With the exception of beehaw.org which defederated, the Fediverse is thriving 🔥
i’d rather have a mesh of small-ish instances instead of several huge ones, that aside the more people the better.
I think that will be a lot more feasible if the capability to migrate user accounts between instances is added.
Right now for a new user joining the fediverse, the largest instances are the best option since they are the most likely to remain up and federated with most other instances. Why would you join some random smaller instance when there’s a clearly established one already there?
Making it possible to change instances would remove some of this friction - then your choice of initial instance isn’t important.
Right. There are a bunch of instances being created by people leaving reddit. A lot of them are not likely to survive. And if that’s where I created my account, it’s just gone. I can’t even access it from elsewhere in the fediverse.
recent events with beehaw have shown that being on a large instance does not guarantee federation.
i’m all for roaming profiles even though i think the best option is hosting a personal or a friends-only instance - unless you’re a colossal asshole nobody will defederate you, you’re are not depending on anyone but yourself for your profile and subscriptions, etc etc. this obviously isn’t for everyone but the barrier of entry is sufficiently low for people interested in tech and fediverse to do just that.
email has started as a fully distributed system but - for reasons too many to count here - ended up centralized over several huge providers, openly dictating rules to everyone else. i’d rather fediverse not followed this road.
I think federation wars will cause that end point. If I wanted to start a community- or group of communities- I’d put them on their own instance and not have user signups. That minimizes exposure to conflict - either you like sports communities / Pathfinder communities / whatever or you don’t. If beehaw wants to lock themselves down it doesn’t affect my community. If Lemmy.world gets blocked by a bunch of instances it doesn’t affect my community. I don’t have to deal with the consequences on other instances of users coming from my instance.
I’d go a step further and say that identity management should exist separately from content, but that would probably break brains already struggling with the concept of federation.
100% this, it’s kind of weird that it’s not.
Just like you thought of having your own instance for a custom set of content with independence, I made my own instance for pretty much an identity base I can maybe control well.
We’ll try to make a good community or two, but I don’t know if I’m good enough or have enough time to grow and moderate one well.
unless you depend on a third party, this is a nontrivial problem.