it was the only one when i joined

I'm hosting my own. I had a free server with 9GB RAM and 99GB disk space, and it was only running my Mastodon server until now. I like the freedom to do what I want with the server :)

Because it's a furry instance

I picked Rammy for the name and the sidebar:

Just another Lemmy instance. We've got a cool mascott though! Open to everyone.

Why trust some Big Tech corporation to host your data when some random geek can do it? All thanks to the power of the Fediverse!

I’m in Kansas City so I joined https://midwest.social 😄

I was planning to sign up at BeeHaw because it seems pretty active and with high quality discussions. When I heard that it had defederated from Lemmy.ml and Lemmy.world I decided not to sign up to any of those three as I would rather have access to all of them (though I can understand why BeeHaw defederated). So I just went with VLemmy.net as it was one of the recommended ones (on join-lemmy.org and the Awesome-Lemmy-Instances GitHub) and seems to be very broadly federated.

I don't think it matters too much, though I think if you were signed up on the same instances as all your favourite communities it would be a bit more convenient.

Picked it for the name, stayed because of the community. A lot of super nice folks here on sh.itjust.works.

Because RIF recommended it

Was the most upvoted comment on "how to get started with Lemmy". Also, some of these other places have super strange names, I get that it doesn't matter but when you know nothing it gives bad vibes.

For some reason I couldn't join lemmy.world and few other popular instances, be it because of technical issues, load, idk. I joined sh.itjust.works because I wanted to check fediverse before I commit to host my own instance, which I probably will at some point.

Because of nationality

as a Greylag goose i flock to feddit.uk

The domain name. And the community seemed friendly enough. Now with the Reddit exodus, I'm glad I migrated to a smaller instance.

The first I tried was Lemmy.ml. I applied and didn't hear back. So I joined Lemmy.world and registered immediately.

I joined lemmy.ml a while ago because following cool opensource projects is my jam.

I signed up with lemmy.ml originally, but then it was a little hugged to death. I couldn't update my community, couldn't post pictures or anything and I kept getting errors.

I went through the list that was only like 10 servers or something at the time, found slrpnk.net which had the vibes of the subreddit I run and found a new home for NoLawns. The guy who runs it seems pretty cool when I had to reach out to him so I've made it my home.

I did also just make a kbin the other day to see what that's all about too but with no app (yet there's a few in the works), I've stuck here.

I signed up at Redditthat.com as it was listed as a recommend instance. I didn't want to overcomplicate the choice. If this instance doesn't fit my needs, I can still create another account somewhere else.

I saw a local instance for new Zealanders and joined.

On the day I signed up, 18.0 was rolling out and lemmy.one was the only one that worked on Jerboa. I wanted to try out the different apps and see what worked well so that was where I started. I also have an account on lemmy.world but I don't think it's necessary unless there's a problem with lemmy.one. might still use another server if I can create my own community there.

It was nearby geographically and the guy running it seemed to know what he was doing from a technical aspect.

Others did not exist back than.

Initially made an account with the instance opened after my country's subreddit made the shift, but on Jerboa trying to look at other instance content was really rough.

So I joined here since I enjoy the content, and raise the black flag every so often.

lemmy.ml was the only general purpose instance when I opened my account. There were only two instances back then - lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml

lemmy.ml because when I joined I had no idea of how the fediverse worked. I'd change it to a smaller one but it really doesn't matter much I don't think.

IDK

Mod of a subreddit I was following created an instance, its was the easiest choice