Some thoughts about using the fediverse:
- While your choice of instance does matter, don't fret too much about it, especially in the beginning. Try to get to grips with how a decentralized network works first. You can always switch to another instance later.
- Try to be somewhat active, it makes the network more valuable for other members and is crucial in breaking through network effects. The threadiverse won't replace reddit instantly, but it'll keep growing slowly, just as the fediverse at large has been doing, regardless of sensationalist journalists proclaiming it's dead every so often.
- Defederation and blocking are integral tools of the network, don't feel (personally) attacked if an instance blocks yours.
- Searching on the wider network isn't as easy, since if an instance hasn't federated with another yet it won't find them unless you do a targeted search which will start up federation.
- The software isn't mature yet and there are still loads of issues. It's also mostly built by a small team and volunteers, so don't expect it to be as slick as reddit is, which is a large company by itself. There are still a lot of federation and synchronisation issues, there can be quite a delay between posts showing up on different instances, and so on. On the other hand: you're part of a community-built project!