cross-posted from: https://lemmy.perthchat.org/post/302114
let’s address the possibility that like mastodon/matrix 99% of ppl will flock to the biggest handful of servers
What is the real value of decentralization given that? Outside of like political unrest.
And what role do small servers really do in that landscape? Obv “novelty” servers like midov cater to the like lolicon enthusiasts and I’m sure there are a few other servers dedicated to illegal things. Regional severs are quite compatible with various nationalists/patriots
But it does matter, doesn’t it? My understanding is that your account data lives somewhere on the server you join, so you need to have some level of trust in that server. When I joined Lemmy yesterday, I saw some of the more popular servers were overloaded, so I joined a small one that seemed reasonable. But I guess that instance was having some trouble, and I couldn’t get content and search to load on the site. I swapped over to a more popular instance and seem to be running fine, so I guess it was instance-specific issues.
And also, I imagine an unreliable site could go down without warning, and take your account with it.
Or do I totally misunderstand how this fediverse thing works? Either case, it’s probably a decent idea to host your own instance if you can, but that introduces a pretty high barrier to entry.