I've been exploring the fediverse options like kbin and lemmy and I just don't see it. Maybe someone can explain. If one lemmy instance has a really popular community, say "Memes" how can that scale? There could be millions of posts and terabytes of data. Then if multiple lemmy instances have their own "Memes" communities, that's balkanized and a user would have to subscribe to each instances "Memes" community?

Or are communities federated also? Like all instances "Memes" communities get pulled together? Examining [1] that appears to not be the case.

[1] https://lemmy.world/c/android

I assume there'd be a limit on the number of popular communities each server can handle. CommunityA@ServerB and CommunityC@ServerD can grow separately and you could participate in both.

If you had CommunityA at both, eventually everyone might migrate to ServerB; but then there's more room on ServerD for other communities.

Does this mean that instances that happen to have the popular communities gets hosed on hosting costs? Or stop submissions? Meanwhile "CommunityA" on other instances starve for content and subscribes. If that's true, communities should be federated as well. Like a user should be able to subscribe to "CommunityA" and get that content from all instances who have a "CommunityA".

Or is that totally off?

AFAICT yes. Posts are federated, but nothing else is.

You can have an account on one instance and subscribe to a community on another. There's no need for every instance to have a "memes" community, though there will undoubtedly be more than one. Then you can subscribe to the one(s) you like best. Not unlike how Reddit tends to have multiple subreddits for popular things with different mods, norms, and feels.

It is unlike that, because it scales completely differently. Basically what the GP is saying is that it's not possible (economically) in the Fediverse to create a community as large as, say, /r/funny.

Basically the federation is happening at the wrong level for that, since the whole community needs to be on a single server.

Well, I was attempting to reply to questions in the second half of the post.

That being said, I don't think communities of that size should really be the goal in the fediverse.

You can subscribe to the [email protected] community from your account on another instance, even if your instance has its own Memes community. Then when you create a thread or post a reply, it'll be sent from your instance to lemmy.world.

I think one looking for alternatives needs to understand what they're hoping to gain from other resources.

If you want low effort jokes, or memes, the most likely outcome is you're going to migrate to where the most people are. Similar to how some subreddits overtook others in popularity, there'll be a federated instance that "wins". We're sort of in a new frontiers phase where people are scrambling to find new homes and there'll be a lot of duplication until winners and losers are settled.

But in the end, if good memes come out of the most populous place. Reddit will probably just simply be the best you have. Anything else will be second rate. Perhaps 'the best' will make its rounds through all sites as reposts just as 9Gag stuff and Imgur stuff finds its way to Reddit or Twitter, or TikTok.

But back to the main point. Lemmy/kbin/etc likely will never be reddit. I'm okay with that because I found most value in smaller niche communities (similar to how HackerNews scratches an itch that Reddit never could). I think there'll be plenty of opportunity to drop my reddit habits as I find moderately active NetSec/Programming/Networking/etc. communities on Lemmy. I'll keep Imgur for lazy image humor, and probably nod to reddit for catching the beat on my local community/provincial subs.

I still see it perhaps as a positive for myself. Loosening my Reddit addiction will be healthy long term. I'll be forced to make decisions on what topics matter to me and how I'll consume them instead of blindly marching through reddit on another doomscroll because it was convenient.

Your comment didn’t address any of OP’s questions lol

I've a fifteen year account and I've found alternatives for my interests that I'm happy with now. Don't think I'll be on Reddit much from now on.

It's a shame as I really enjoyed it while it lasted, especially in the early days.

> Given reddit is apparently restoring deleted comments, that's going to be a useless gesture.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't this weaken Reddit's claim to Section 230 immunity? As in, they cross the line from simply being a provider of user generated content to being a publisher of it? We're not talking normal moderation but rather publishing what was marked for deletion.