94

Most people access the Fediverse through one of the large instances: lemmy.world, kbin, or beehaw. New or small instances of Lemmy have no content by default, and can most easily get content by linking to larger Lemmy instances. This is done manually one "Community" at a time (I spent 15 minutes doing this yesterday). Meanwhile, on larger instances, content naturally aggregates as a result of the sheer number of users. Because people generally want a user experience similar to Reddit, I think it's inevitable that most user activity will be concentrated in one or two instances. It is probable that these instances follow in the footsteps of Reddit- the cycle repeats.

I actually think the Fediverse is in the beginning the process of fragmenting into siloed smaller, centralized instances. Beehaw, which is on the list of top instances, just blacklisted everyone from lemmy.world. Each of the three largest instances now are working to be a standalone replacement for Reddit and are in direct competition with each other. It is possible that this fragmentation and instability? of Lemmy instances will kill the viability of Federated Reddit altogether, but hopefully not.

These are my main takeaways from my three days on the Fediverse. I will stick around to see if the Fediverse can sustain itself after the end of the Reddit blackouts.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] yozul@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

I think that the Lemmy equivalents to big subreddits will be centralized around a few larger instances and they'll come to dominate the all timeline, but more niche things seem like they can crop up anywhere. My favorite subreddits were always the smaller ones anyway, so federation will be important for me.

Also, it matters that there are a few big instances instead of just one. If one goes full spez the others can take up the slack until a smaller general purpose instance can take its place. For example, if beehaw does go nuts and just keep defederating until it's completely siloed instead of this being a temporary measure until moderation is more under control, then I can just make another account somewhere else and these communities will become less important. I don't think that's likely, but it's a problem that solves itself in a federated system.

this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023
94 points (98.0% liked)

Technology

37750 readers
854 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS