They all look the same to me, and I can communicate with other Lemmy users so what's the point? (I don't know anything about Lemmy lol I just joined)

      • CandleTiger@programming.dev
        ·
        11 months ago

        This is an excellent case in point — for most instances there kind of just, somebody felt like making an instance and here it is. If you don’t know anybody specifically there’s not much reason to pick one over another. Maybe in future somebody will start up commercial instances like email providers and charge extra to have better reliability or a cool name or whatever but so far the instances seem to be pretty much run for the sake of neighborly kindness and fun.

        Some instances have enough of a special interest that they get a distinct identity and reputation.

        If you go look at what’s posted/hosted locally on the hexbear instance you’ll see it’s got a shit-ton of general trolling, shit-disturbing, lib-pwning, and general 4chan activity. If that’s your jam, you can sign up there and have a “local” feed with that kind of content, concentrated.

        Meanwhile I’ve seen a number of calls to defederate from hexbear recently and if you sign up there you will not see or interact with whomever is posting from those instances who say no to trolling.

        • Aryuproudomenowdaddy [comrade/them]
          ·
          11 months ago

          If you go look at what’s posted/hosted locally on the hexbear instance you’ll see it’s got a shit-ton of general trolling, shit-disturbing, lib-pwning, and general 4chan activity. If that’s your jam, you can sign up there and have a “local” feed with that kind of content, concentrated.

          4chan activity? I mostly post ska.

        • Frub@lemm.ee
          hexagon
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          Is there an opportunity for ad monetization as a commercial instance? Because so far I haven't seen any

          • CandleTiger@programming.dev
            ·
            11 months ago

            I was talking about charging subscription fees for the instance login, not ads. I imagine if you wanted to fork lemmy and change it to inflict ads on your instance users you could do that, too.

            I’m not thinking it’s an awesome business proposition right now, but if the fediverse gets big enough that users are willing to pay for Enterprise Reliability™ then I could see it happening.

            It used to be that you could self-host your email server or use your cool friend’s server. But these days almost everybody uses commercial hosting. I see lemmy and mastodon going the same way if they grow enough.

  • s_s@lemmy.one
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    It's like having different email providers.

    They will all send and receive email, although some might try to cut down on spam by blocking email from other specific providers.

    Also, certain providers will host different email newsgroups (ie communities, ie "subreddits")

  • jonne@infosec.pub
    ·
    11 months ago

    You know how on Reddit people were always bitching about the mods or admins? With federation, you can choose your mods and admins. Still won't stop you from getting banned from certain communities, but if mods take it too far, you can just start a community on a different server.

    • Frub@lemm.ee
      hexagon
      ·
      11 months ago

      Like a democracy or what? Lol. How do you choose them?

      • jonne@infosec.pub
        ·
        11 months ago

        I mean, there's no vote or anything. It's just that if you don't like the moderation policies of one instance, you can just create an account on another one that aligns more with what you prefer.

      • Pyro@pawb.social
        ·
        11 months ago

        The instance can control it and another instance can create a "competition" of the same instance. Diffrent mods for each and not being locked to 1 type.

        Though hopefully we get something similar to supper communities that are multiple of the same under 1 listing

  • WackyTabbacy42069@reddthat.com
    ·
    11 months ago

    My instance doesn't seem to allow me to see downvotes. Makes the place seem nicer, but leaves me only ratioing to determine if something was disliked

  • ijeff@lemdro.id
    ·
    11 months ago

    That's the beauty of it! Just like email, it doesn't really matter which provider you sign up through. It gives you choice.

    However, some instances do de-federate from other ones meaning you wouldn't be able to see any content from communities hosted on them nor anything posted by their users.

  • HSL@wayfarershaven.eu
    ·
    11 months ago

    This is more of a support question, related to using Lemmy. Please see the sidebar for a list of communities that offer support. Removing under rule #3.