The documentation explaining how fediverse works is so bad. It's so long and convoluted anyone new just can't get bothered reading it.

I tried to make an account on lemmy.ml and it looks like their servers are (understandably) overloaded

I ended up choosing lemmy.world instead

My understanding is I'm not missing out on anything by chosing a less-popular instance. Did I get that right?

tbf people just wanna sign up and click on funny links, not browse through 100 rando instances to find the one that lines up with their exact interests and wait for approval and worry about uptime and whether their instance will still exist in a year

I chose lemmy.ml based on two things:

• I wanted a server that wasn't likely to close I don't really know for sure, but I imagine it's easy to underestimate how much money or time is required to run a server. And I'd really prefer not having to worry about migrating. The 'run by Lemmy's developers' part makes me think that either the risk will be lower or the people running the server will know how to prevent reaching a point like that.
• I didn't want to join a very specific instance As I see it, there are two possible scenarios:
  • The instance I join will affect the content I'm exposed (and not exposed) to, in which case I want to experience 'the whole internet' rather than a section of it.
  • The instance I choose is irrelevant to the content I get, in which case, (apart from community rules) it shouldn't really matter which one I choose, so I would just join the biggest instance.

Still something that could help with the choosing-an-instance process is to display in the list of servers the community rules and if they are blocking certain communities.

This is something that lemmy devs need to better address. This is an "Eternal September" kind of situation. People (me included) are not used to the fediverse. They think you can participate only if you're in that instance. And people want content, so they think "why's the instance with most people? Ahh lemmy.ml? Cool, let's join.

IDK, beehaw.org and lemmy.world aren't doing too bad

They need to do away with the ridiculous manual approval process on most servers and recommend servers that forego it on the main site.

lemmy.world unite!

"I just want to be where the people are" 🧜‍♀️

Problem is that a) new users don’t know that they can join communities across servers, and b) it is intuitive use start with the servers that a lot of people like.

Instance browsing and onboarding is probably the biggest challenge to Lemmy’s growth. The current experience either scares new people away, or encourages them to congregate on a limited set of instances.

I use lemmy.world. they have an associated mastodon as well.

Idk why anyone would use the main instance and choose to be admined by genocide denying tankies

I created my own server...

I definitely didnt pick sh.it just.works for the funny name, naaaaaaaaah

I just hope it lasts, worst thing would be if people just went back to reddit

I created my account at sh.itjust.works but I don't fully understand Lemmy yet. Finding communities seems confusing.

sh.itjust.works Gang represent ✊

Proudly burdening sh.itjust.works instead of lemmy.ml!

Hello from beehaw.org!

proudly hailing from NOT lemmy.ml 🤗

feddit.de but we’ve had some heavy load an hour ago.

Lemmy.world checking in

I'm very tempted to switch to another instance, but from what I understand, you can't migrate your account like you can with Mastodon? That seems like something that should be expected with fediverse apps...

New feddit.de user reporting in

Ze Germans seem to have their own monopolistic instance

Well I tried beehaw but I after creating an account I had to wait to be accepted.. 1 hour later couldn't login so I went to lemmy.ml and it was instantaneous so..here I am

Lemmy.world gang

New user, signed up on an alternative. It isn't intuitive to add a community from another server. Got there eventually though!