I don't know man, I'm here because shit just works.

I joined world before I knew what an instance was. When the RIF app shut down, the developer recommended lemmy.world. I honestly, thought it was a single website.

At the time I signed up Lemmy.World was pretty small, I just wanted an instance that wasn't .ml and had better policies... As it turned out the modlog is very transparent and they were deleting posts critical of the CCP/Russia. So I left and made an account on World.

It seems World was a good choice... Although now that it struggles with the amount of users it seems it might be worth setting an alt up on another instance just to help me out when it gets too busy over here.

Any lemm.ee gang?

I signed up on the 12th, after spending a little time comparing with the information I had. My thought process was:

• I was uncomfortable with the fact that .ml was hosted in Malaysia
• I thought a larger instance might mean it sticks around longer, but didn't really want to be on the largest (which .ml was)
• Beehaw seemed otherwise a good fit, but their policies seemed too restrictive
• .world seemed to have liberal policies, allowed NSFW, was large but not largest, and was hosted in a country that didn't worry me

it was the first instance i found when searching. i think it was a reddit post. so maybe world was more promoted on bigger reddit subs?

I left Beehaw because they defederated from instances where half my communities were at. Ended up on Lemmy world because they had my favorites.

Idk about other people, but I don't really know how the instances work and the lemmy.world instance name seems the least abstract. Beehaw was confusing because it's not called lemmy so idk if it's a different thing or what, and idk what .ml means or stands for. Lemmy.world just looks like it's the default lemmy instance to me as a dunce who doesn't know how lemmy works.

I am new like most of us. When I signed up I had now idea what an instance was. To me the name Lemmy.world sounded like it was more general and therefore would have more content so I picked that one.

As someone signing up for lemmy.world, my reasons were:

• It sounds official or at least less obscure than ".ml" or "sh.itjust.works"
• It sounded inclusive (we're all part of the world, so to speak)
• It was in the list of default instances of Connect for Lemmy

Otherwise, I didn't give much though to which instance to pick.

I have an account on .world but lemm.ee is a great name and the admin who runs the instance sounds like a cool guy. Plus .world is already way overloaded so I was looking for another instance.

A reddit user made a list of alternative services for reddit. The list was .world, .ml and bee. At this point i didn't know it's the same decentralised service. I picked the first one, liked it and made an account after a few days.

I can only speak for myself, but as a complete newbie who wanted to create an account and figure out how lemmy works, I honestly thought lemmy.world is the main site and everything else is just smaller niche communities.

There was an ELI5 post that clarified how it all works, but that was after I created my account.

Probably because its name sounds official and it allows quick registration while others need approval (some never approves you).

Turns out it’s the right choice as the admin seems very active in updates and fixes. Lemmy.world also has a more chill homey vibes. At least that’s what I observed so far.

My leading theory is that both lemmy.world and lemmy.ml were in a list of 5+ “recommended” communities, and “world” is the only recognizable word that implies all-inclusivity. And now that the world population is so high, more people will assume that is the “default/correct” community.

I joined world because I figured it was a global community, and did not want to limit myself before I even knew what I was joining into. I may end up making 2 or 3 accounts just to have access to separate, possibly defederated, communities.

By keeping sign-ups open, mostly.

Lemmy.ml, to my understanding, was always meant to be a pilot instance from the devs of lemmy. Beehaw is kind of its own forum. There is also sh.itjust.works, but that has been caught up in some federation drama, and I don't think people like the name. Lemmy.world has been the right server at the right time to absorb everyone and I guess they have been able to keep up with sign-ups. Kudos to them.

I went for the most generic "official" sounding name.

The question was already answered by others. As a nitpicky side note: Developers have nothing to do with server popularity. They just develop the software on GitHub. This software is then run on all lemmy instances, by admins. Admins can influence instance size, by opening/closing it for registration, through policy and communication. Further down in the hierarchy, the regular users can advertise for their instance.