Lemmy.world for me.

It's generic, has a good list of communities, and the mods are legends with updates and transparency.

Beehaw is a quieter experience than most because it has narrower federation, but you do tend to get a better signal to noise ratio since you miss the spammier instances - I like it.

Beehaw also doesn't federate downvotes which I think is an improvement.

I'm enjoying Beehaw. I really haven't looked around at other instances that much, but it's pretty chill here.

I prefer sopuli.xyz

lemmy.sdf.org when it works; federation there is kinda fucked right now, so ~~I'm on lemmy.today for now.~~ I accidentally posted it from SDF. Comment if you can see this.

SDF has an extensive track record (* much longer than I have been alive*) of providing systems for the public good. If federation gets fixed (and it probably will eventually), I'll be back on SDF.

Additionally, I generally don't want the set of people I can connect with to be technically limited, like at all. Yes that includes "all the bad people" according to your (and my) individual worldview. If they're going to exist, I would prefer to have advanced notice of the danger they pose. If you suck, I will block you.

I'm not against moderated or curated instances, and for most people that is probably the way to go, but it's not what I personally need. Yes, this means that I occasionally get wild shit when I choose to scroll through All. Yes, that means I get various shades of genocide apologists and weird bigots, again when I choose not to browse by Local or Subscribed. That's why I'm subscribed to a bunch of cool, moderated communities. I choose the content I see.

That is the approach I prefer for myself. Again, I understand that it's not for everyone.

As far as instances where I'm not (yet) a member, lemmy.dbzer0.com is my favorite by far. Also while I don't have any communities on their instance, the startrek.website people seem to always have something interesting to say.

Is it weird to not have a favorite?

As an American I prefer lemmy.ca

lemmy.ohaa.xyz, cause its mine :D

slrpnk.net :D

Every instance is good because every instance can interact with many other instances with comments, posts etc. So you arent really locked into one instance. its the magic of federation.

I like mine because it is mine :)

Lemm.ee seems pretty okay.

I don't care much about instances though, I just use Lemmy like it's Reddit and scroll through the home page and my subscriptions

mander.xyz is my favorite. Love and subscribed to the most of the communities it have.

unpopular hexbear because seeing both sides of the propaganda broadens my critical thinking more than echo chambers, yes-men, and logical fallacies being thrown my way instead of supporting data

lemmy.blahaj.zone because im biased

Lemmy.ca and sh.itjust.works

My favourite instance is lemy.lol because it uses 0.19 rc version, has short domain name, and nice UI theme, and that's why I choosed it for my account

kbin.social. 😛

My main is reddthat.com

Clear and open admins; smaller instance with room to grow; it's my personal favorite

I like .world abit, but I'm a touch biased 🤣

startrek.website definitely punches above its weight, was my first account

But this alt on reddthat.com I use more because it has down voting disabled and it keeps me more zen

I'm liking kbin more for the web UI than anything, but it's had some weird federation issues, so I might move one day.

I used lemmy.ml back when the lemmyverse was pretty much just pro-Russia tankies, it wasn't that great.