I’m a reddit refugee trying to figure this out. It seems to me like it’s a decent idea to break up countrol like this, but unfortunately there are some inherent problems that mean it might not work in the real world.
The biggest in my view is that communities are scoped to the instance they started in. You could have 2 different communities with the same niche and the same or similar name but different insurances and the subscriber numbers will be split across them. I think this is damaging to growth because it spreads active users.
Eventually if the niche grows one of the communities of the niche will be the biggest and most active. So generally users will consolidate around the instances with the most active communities thus making those instances have a lot of control and defeating the purpose of federation.
Is there something I’m missing here? Because currently I’m not convinced this can both grow and keep things decentralized.
The Problem you describe applies to reddit also, however the solution on lemmy is in your question.
If a community gets scuttled on reddit, where are you going to go? How do you make the transition smooth enough that you’ll retain most of the community. You’re pretty up shit creek in this scenario.
On lemmy if the main community is scuttled, there are already 5 new communities set up, with the same UX/app/login creds. The members can transition easily and carry on being wonderfully niche.
Yes technically the owners of the instance “have all the control”, but it’s in the same way that a friend lending you their car “has all the control”. If they’re a dick or need it back you can just ask someone else. As opposed to reddit which is more like welfare, if the government decides to kick you off, you’re shit out of luck
The problem with those other 5 communities, is that they fracture the user base. Even before the one you were using gets scuttled, the users are split between several places, and they all feel dead, because again, the user base is fractured.
I like the idea of Lemmy, but honestly don’t see how the idea is sustainable if it wants to grow.