1: Even big instances start out small.
2: Also having other instances besides the big ones helps prevent a monopoly over the fediverse.
3: Bigger isn't always better. Nothing wrong with a small Cozy community.
I agree and basically, it's not a bug, it's a feature
There is no monopoly if you have a dozen big instances. But if you have 1000 instances? What is the point. Can't start a community there without it going poof the next week.
The core issue here is instances disappearing, and That goes into the discussion of the structure of the fediverse right now vs. the fediverse in the future
A dozen big instances feel better now, and I personally wouldn't make a community on a smaller instance unless I know it is likely to stay up. If it was run by an existing organization for example.
Long term though, I trust existing organizations to set up stable instances that won't be shut down easily. If a government, school, game company etc. makes an instance it's not likely to go down. Having lots of instances will look more normal then.
Ultimately we don't need to do anything differently, I recommend new people join a big instance and then make a new account once they know what instance they like.
OP asked a pretty reasonable open ended question. There are other people who may be thinking the same, and reading the discussions here might change their minds. Save downvoting for rule breaking / content that's bad for the community
note to everyone: please don’t downvote good faith questions
Thank you for this
Would be nice to be able to backup your magazine/community, so if for example random.lemmy goes down, you can still migrate your /mini4wd elsewhere. Don't know how it could be implemented though, I'm still in the "i get it but not really" phase with the Fediverse.
That is always a risk for small instances.
It is the same for small businesses or libraries/museums funded by donations.
Imo just because there is a risk does not mean they shouldn't do it.
I run an instance focused on the needs of trans and gender diverse folk, because big instances run by cis folk tend not to deal with transphobia as well as I would like.
Centralised instances not dealing with transphobia is why I left most other social media platforms, so you can imagine I'm keen not to just repeat that experience here
Thank you for your work
that's literally the exact reason i left Reddit, before all the recent drama even. it's just so toxic
I think you've correctly identified a problem, but misidentified the solution.
It's true that there are many redundant communities of which everyone would be better served if there were an easy way to group them together. The solution, however, is not to reduce the number of instances, but rather to provide more tools for instances to group communities together. You want communities to be spread across many instances because this maximizes user control - it's kind of the entire point? But of course, the lack of grouping makes it very difficult to try to centralize discussion, which is important for the community to grow. This service is still a work in progress, so these kinds of things - I hope - will come in time, as both the technology and culture develops.
tl;dr: centralized control bad, centralized discussion good, the current system does a bad job of reconciling these two positions
Seems like what a lot of people want is a hybrid of Usenet and Reddit, but what we have is more like a bunch of reddits that are willing to talk to each other. Certainly better for governance and redundancy and as a kind of organic load balancing in a cash-poor ecosystem, but the "killer app" would be (optional?) persistence of communities outside of instances.
The solution, however, is not to reduce the number of instances, but rather to provide more tools for instances to group communities together.
kbin collections are grouping together communities, but unfortunately, collections themselves do not federate
@gicagaf805
People say that a few large instances would be easy pickings for the profit motive, and monetizing.
There is a lot of handwringing over on mastodon about how people should not be directed to the large instances by default. And that people need to join the small instances to make sure mastodon (or fedi-verse) is not taken over by a few who want to profit off it. They mock those on large instances. They tell people they should join small instances.
But I have seen many small instances close and leave people in the lurch. I have seen a few people have to move several times.
I have seen users be abandoned and left with a broken instance that doesn’t work, and the admin nowhere to be seen.
I agree. But maybe the medium ones aren’t too bad.
Medium ones are the way to go
100% agree
We only need a few big instances
Who is this we? Who are you speaking for?
Why do we need so many smaller ones?
Why do you care?
How are smaller instances impacting you?
You are not on the largest instance. Why not?
Why are you hanging out on a small instance...
This is literally in the top 5 biggest instances 🤣
To me we only need the largest 2, anymore is silly. Move to one of them.
(just taking you idea to its logical conclusion)
Lemm.ee that you're on has 25,718 users but only 2232 are active, that's a really small number. Lemmy.world that you're posting into is number 9 with 11,500 active users, that's still super small tbf.
You might be happier on facebook?
The small intestine is actually the longest segment of the gastrointestinal tract — the long, continuous pathway that food travels through your digestive system. In the small intestine, food is broken down into liquid and most of its nutrients are absorbed. The waste is passed on to the large intestine.
So who should be in charge of deciding who can have an instance and who can't?
You’re twisting OP’s words. He just wants to discuss the purpose of small instances, he isn’t forcing people to abolish them.
I think it's a valid thing to consider. Due to the nature of the fediverse, there will always be small instances. I guess you could say their purpose is to allow Lemmy to be decentralized.
Small instances don't prevent Lemmy from being centralized, people don't mind if their instance defederates from an instance with 5 people. Medium-sized instances (e.g. dbzer0) prevent wrongful defederation, because people will suddenly miss a few communities / users.
I think you've missed the entire point. Like, completely missed it.
A lotta folks host their own instance simply to have a bit more control over what they personally see since until 0.19, only instance admins can block an entire instance. It also allows you to see metrics you can't otherwise; such as the actual users who voted up and down on a specific post.
Then just don't start a community on a small one.
I'm a minuscule instance. That's fine. I like that I have control over it, how it's maintained and updated. If I want to convert it to Mbin because I like it more, I can. I know for sure it's going to live at least as long as I'm interested in the fediverse. Nobody can take it away from me.
Big instances are expensive to run, and in a way, they're not exactly immune to shutting down and big instances shutting down have a much bigger impact than a small one with few communities when they go poof.
When cars first started being mass produced it wasn’t just Ford doing it. There were like 50 manufacturers, big and small.
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
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