Correct me if I’m wrong. I read ActivityPub standards and dug a little into lemmy sources to understand how federation works. And I’m a bit disappointed. Every server just has a cache and the ability to fetch something from another known server. So if you start your own instance, there is no profit for the whole network until you have a significant piece of auditory (e.g. private instances or servers with no users). Are there any “balancers” to utilize these empty instances? Should we promote (or create in the first place) a way how to passively help lemmy with such fast growth?

  • Master@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    35
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 years ago

    This problem existed on reddit too still. You have r/games r/game r/gamers r/gamenews r/gamernews etc. All trying to do the exact same thing.

    • coalbus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      2 years ago

      I think this comment convinced me. Because you’re right, on Reddit there were always offshoot communities that were essentially the same exact thing just of different sizes and run by different people. There’ll probably always be the “most popular” one, and then several offshoots for the same topic but perhaps a better sense of community because it’s hundreds or thousands of users vs millions or tens of millions of users.

      Remembering the exact instance and community name combinations will take a little extra effort, but not significantly and subscribing negates that mostly.

      • haxasaur@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        2 years ago

        The one that pissed me off a lot is the misspelling of r/politcs trying to mimic r/politics. And i messaged the mods asking why they existed and was just either oblivious or trolled with their answer of “to talk politics”.

        • WalrusByte@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          2 years ago

          Took me forever to realize I was subscribed to an r/mildlyinteresting and an r/mildyinteresting. Just figured they were the same thing and didn’t affect me much.