From what i can gather, it could be beneficial to, for example, have an instance which would become the main place to get videogame content on Lemmy. Most communities would be for specific games or AAA companies, but it could also have c/general for asking questions or topics which are non specific to any community, or c/meta, which would work as a place to discuss the state of the instance.
Overall, nothing that different from the actual status quo, but this way, we could consider instances as hubs for certain topics, which would then specialize with the /c/s within said instance. Instead of having 7 c/technology across instances, we could have @Tech.no and subdivide it into c/topic1, c/topic2, etc. (was supposed to come up with smthing but came empty handed shut up i dont browse that sub) .
What im mostly seeing here is that popular instances themselves are not different from reddit. The most popular instances on lemmy are beehaw.org and lemmy.ml, which have the same m.o, if you will, of reddit. Which is good, theyre popular for a reason, but in a way, theyre competing with each other. Not financially, but there will be overlap between certain /c/s.
Of course im not asking if its possible. Its just a matter of running the server and having the right infrastructure. My question is if you think its feasible to decentralize lemmy from the main instances, or even a good idea in the first place. Maybe you think its ok the way things currently are? Or maybe what i said is supposed to be the goal and im just late to the party? What are your thoughts?
@aka_oscar@beehaw.org @lemmy@lemmy.ml Yes - https://mander.xyz is a good example of this (Nature Instance). A few generalist servers are ok as entry points but how does lemmy.one,lemmy.world,lemmy.click differentiate from one another and not just dilute or cannibalise content? Why should beehaw.org spin up a gardening community when https://mander.xyz/c/gardening exists? I would have thought funnelling users there would help spread the load on the network would have been a useful approach, because ultimately that is the advantage of federation.
I didn’t frame that well, but can’t edit. I believe the network would benefit from dedicated instances. I think it requires the generalist to help the dedicated ones to grow by directing traffic outwards e.g push audiences to slrpnk.net or mander, poptalk etc for the relevant communities.
I’m loving the precedence that mander.xyz is setting!