Same reason there are multiple phone companies. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Google Fi, Cricket Wireless, Mint Mobile, etc.
They all allow you to communicate with your friends no matter what provider they use. But the companies are all slightly different. You might choose one due to better coverage, or customer support, or corporate ethics, or simply cause a friend recommended it.
Phones are redundant. So if Verizon fails, you can always sign up for another provider and still talk to your friends. Or if you have a bad experience, you’re not stuck using something you hate.
Plus, if one company ruled all of phones, it would be a bad thing. Monopolies aren’t good.
Lemmy isn’t the only thing out there with ‘multiple websites’ online. Email - there is more than just gmail, outlook, yahoo, proton, etc.
It’s not confusing to you that there are multiple email companies, that all work together, right? You don’t need a gmail account to send a message to a gmail user.
So don’t think it Lemmy like a website owned by one company. It’s not. Just like nobody owns “email”. Think of it like a protocol.
But I get it. Lemmy is an emerging technology. People are expecting it to be new Reddit. And it is on the front end. But it’s closer to new email.
Copy/paste from a comment I happened to have submitted a few minutes ago.
From a functionality perspective there is no difference. I’m registered to a Dutch server with this account and can comment on all OPs that are visible to me.
The administrator of a server (domain or instance) can block other servers (domains or instances) however. So if Meta not only starts it’s own Twitter-like platform, but also it’s own Reddit-like platform, it could be that administrators block access to the Meta server.
The best example for Mastodon (which uses the same federation protocol as Lemmy) is the Truth Social platform on which former president Trump publishes his posts. The administrators of Truth Social blocked access to all other servers on the fediverse, so Truth Social doesn’t federate at all. And I presume administrators of many other servers block access to Truth Social.
So from that aspect, you might think through on what server you register. Might the administrator block access to certain servers? Do you want that or not? etc.
But you can also take location into consideration with regard to legal questions. I personally do not want to register on a server in certain countries if for example the GDPR is not enforceable.
You also have to keep in mind that openly federating forces instance admins to, on some level, moderate the content from other instances too. Lemmy.world was forced to block some instances because it was proving too hard to moderate the content from them. You should also consider this when choosing an instance.
If an administrator thinks it’s appropriate to block another instance, then who am I to complain if I use the instance free of charge except perhaps donations?
You’re completely right there can be such reasons for administrators to block other instances and that’s up to them.
Which, by the way, is also a great way to verify certain people. If a Lemmy account is registered on a server with a domain that is owned by a large broadcast company for example, it’s easy to check whether the user of that account is who that person claims to be.
The municipality of Amsterdam set up their own Mastodon server registered to amsterdam.nl, so it’s clear their Mastodon posts are genuinely from the municipality without any external verification schedule. If the mayor would want to post herself, she could simply get an account on that server and everybody knows it’s genuinely her.
Your instance isn’t defederated from too many big instances. (LW is defederated from beehaw.org so I have alternative accounts to view posts from there).
Your instance doesn’t have a specific topic that you aren’t interested in. (LW is a general-topic instance so that’s all good).
Your instance has good uptime. (LW often has issues with huge masses of users migrating over from Reddit).
Kinda pointless comment from me since its over , but I’d do it regardless.
The solution is just to fast. 3 day fasts are surprisingly simple to do and makes you easily not poop.
There’s also some feature differences between instances. Some instances disable downvotes, don’t allow creating communities, or have stricter rules about communities that are allowed.
I chose my current instance because I wanted downvotes (I see them as critical for quality control) and also wanted to be federated with beehaw.
As an aside, LW made massive performance improvements the other day. They seem to be in a good position to keep growing, currently. There’s certainly some benefits to being on the biggest instance, because of how the /all feed works. It’s not actually all. It’s “all communities someone on my instance subscribes to”, so the bigger your instance, the more correct /all is.
If you’re using the web-ui, you can change the scope of your searches to include external results as well. You can subscribe to any community without leaving your home instance.
It does not, right now I can see posts from other instances (like this one), without leaving mine (discuss.tchncs.de). You might actually get a better experience on smaler instances, as the big three (lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, bbeehaw.org) can get quite slow at times.
As of now, it does matter. I’m on kbin.social, but atm I can’t see most content and comments from lemmy instances. Something is not federating correctly.
@Quickswitch79 Due to the magic of the Fediverse you don’t even need to be on Lemmy!
Kbin is another similar system that interacts with Lemmy, and this reply has come from Mastodon!
Although in general I wouldn’t recommend using Mastodon to interact with Lemmy communities, it works but it’s not what either system is optimised for so it’s a bit clunky.
But it’s still pretty amazing to me: it’s like using Twitter or Instagram to read and reply to Reddit!
But it’s still pretty amazing to me: it’s like using Twitter or Instagram to read and reply to Reddit!
It’s probably amazing because everybody is used to social media platforms blocking access to and from other platforms. The point of these commercial platforms is to reel in as many users as possible and keep them in the ecosystem. No export possibilities, no federation or standard protocol.
It’s like a large company inventing e-mail and not allowing people to e-mail to an e-mail address registered to another domain. Nobody would think that’s logical, but most have grown accustomed to commercial social media locking every account in.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
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Why are there multiple Lemmy websites lol. So confusing.
Same reason there are multiple phone companies. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Google Fi, Cricket Wireless, Mint Mobile, etc.
They all allow you to communicate with your friends no matter what provider they use. But the companies are all slightly different. You might choose one due to better coverage, or customer support, or corporate ethics, or simply cause a friend recommended it.
Phones are redundant. So if Verizon fails, you can always sign up for another provider and still talk to your friends. Or if you have a bad experience, you’re not stuck using something you hate.
Plus, if one company ruled all of phones, it would be a bad thing. Monopolies aren’t good.
Lemmy isn’t the only thing out there with ‘multiple websites’ online. Email - there is more than just gmail, outlook, yahoo, proton, etc.
It’s not confusing to you that there are multiple email companies, that all work together, right? You don’t need a gmail account to send a message to a gmail user.
So don’t think it Lemmy like a website owned by one company. It’s not. Just like nobody owns “email”. Think of it like a protocol.
But I get it. Lemmy is an emerging technology. People are expecting it to be new Reddit. And it is on the front end. But it’s closer to new email.
Because that’s the whole point of being decentralised. Nobody gets everything.
If there was just one “Lemmy”, we’d be back to another monolithic Reddit again.
Because Lemmy isn’t a website. It’s software that runs social content aggregation sites.
It’s like what WordPress is for blogs and other unidirectional content serving websites.
The fun thing is, though, that any website running Lemmy can share content posted to it with any other website running Lemmy.
It’s only confusing because corporate social media has taught us that “service = place”.
There really needs to be a fediverse primer that everyone can read before signing up. It would make all this stuff clear.
That’s the basis of the whole system, they use the same protocol to communicate(activity pub) and share content.
It allows anyone to run their own version of reddit and they can decide which other servers they want to have content from
Copy/paste from a comment I happened to have submitted a few minutes ago.
From a functionality perspective there is no difference. I’m registered to a Dutch server with this account and can comment on all OPs that are visible to me.
The administrator of a server (domain or instance) can block other servers (domains or instances) however. So if Meta not only starts it’s own Twitter-like platform, but also it’s own Reddit-like platform, it could be that administrators block access to the Meta server.
The best example for Mastodon (which uses the same federation protocol as Lemmy) is the Truth Social platform on which former president Trump publishes his posts. The administrators of Truth Social blocked access to all other servers on the fediverse, so Truth Social doesn’t federate at all. And I presume administrators of many other servers block access to Truth Social.
So from that aspect, you might think through on what server you register. Might the administrator block access to certain servers? Do you want that or not? etc.
But you can also take location into consideration with regard to legal questions. I personally do not want to register on a server in certain countries if for example the GDPR is not enforceable.
Thank you for this explanation! It helped a lot
You also have to keep in mind that openly federating forces instance admins to, on some level, moderate the content from other instances too. Lemmy.world was forced to block some instances because it was proving too hard to moderate the content from them. You should also consider this when choosing an instance.
If an administrator thinks it’s appropriate to block another instance, then who am I to complain if I use the instance free of charge except perhaps donations?
You’re completely right there can be such reasons for administrators to block other instances and that’s up to them.
Which, by the way, is also a great way to verify certain people. If a Lemmy account is registered on a server with a domain that is owned by a large broadcast company for example, it’s easy to check whether the user of that account is who that person claims to be.
The municipality of Amsterdam set up their own Mastodon server registered to amsterdam.nl, so it’s clear their Mastodon posts are genuinely from the municipality without any external verification schedule. If the mayor would want to post herself, she could simply get an account on that server and everybody knows it’s genuinely her.
That’s brilliant, thanks a lot 🙂
It doesn’t matter as long as:
It’s still a very good instance. If you want to switch over to a different instance, check out Awesome-Lemmy-Instances on Github.
hey you’re the guy who didn’t shit, how did that go!
Update comment
Kinda pointless comment from me since its over , but I’d do it regardless. The solution is just to fast. 3 day fasts are surprisingly simple to do and makes you easily not poop.
There’s also some feature differences between instances. Some instances disable downvotes, don’t allow creating communities, or have stricter rules about communities that are allowed.
I chose my current instance because I wanted downvotes (I see them as critical for quality control) and also wanted to be federated with beehaw.
As an aside, LW made massive performance improvements the other day. They seem to be in a good position to keep growing, currently. There’s certainly some benefits to being on the biggest instance, because of how the /all feed works. It’s not actually all. It’s “all communities someone on my instance subscribes to”, so the bigger your instance, the more correct /all is.
If you’re using the web-ui, you can change the scope of your searches to include external results as well. You can subscribe to any community without leaving your home instance.
It does not, right now I can see posts from other instances (like this one), without leaving mine (discuss.tchncs.de). You might actually get a better experience on smaler instances, as the big three (lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, bbeehaw.org) can get quite slow at times.
I can see other instances but somehow I can’t subscribe or comment to a community from another instance beside .world? Idk.
yes, you can! you just have to search for “all” instead of “local” under Communities!
Some instances aren’t connected for various reasons. What instance?
thats weird you should be able to unless defederated
Generally, not really.
https://static.xtremeownage.com/blog/2023/join-the-fediverse/
I find that to be a good manual for beginners, thanks for sharing :)
Not a problem, glad it was helpful!
As of now, it does matter. I’m on kbin.social, but atm I can’t see most content and comments from lemmy instances. Something is not federating correctly.
Yeah, lemmy and kbin have had issues syncing up for me and posts I made on a kbin instance not showing up despite waiting days.
So until that gets resolved or if, it’s best to have a lemmy and kbin account.
I am from a different instance, it is fine.
@Quickswitch79 Due to the magic of the Fediverse you don’t even need to be on Lemmy!
Kbin is another similar system that interacts with Lemmy, and this reply has come from Mastodon!
Although in general I wouldn’t recommend using Mastodon to interact with Lemmy communities, it works but it’s not what either system is optimised for so it’s a bit clunky.
But it’s still pretty amazing to me: it’s like using Twitter or Instagram to read and reply to Reddit!
It’s probably amazing because everybody is used to social media platforms blocking access to and from other platforms. The point of these commercial platforms is to reel in as many users as possible and keep them in the ecosystem. No export possibilities, no federation or standard protocol.
It’s like a large company inventing e-mail and not allowing people to e-mail to an e-mail address registered to another domain. Nobody would think that’s logical, but most have grown accustomed to commercial social media locking every account in.