Instance getting too centralized? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by hydra@lemmy.world to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

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EDIT: Thank you all for your answers, now I'm reassured this platform is in good hands and we will always have the freedom to switch. Let's make this place vibrant, diverse and decentralized, like the old web used to be.

I feel like this instance is getting too big and all the content is being centralized here. Am I right or there are other instances thriving too?

Wherever I go I keep seeing lots of lemmy.world users and communities and kind of feel worried about centralization.

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[-] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

I'm an ex-redditor, so I'm still getting my lemmy legs. I don't know how things will play out a decade from now, but I'm enjoying being here during this little sliver of social media history.

I'm kinda digging the order and the volatility. I very much enjoy how easy it is to simply up and leave one instance for another, without experiencing an abrupt shift of everything from how stuff works, to basic etiquette.

It just seems like a very difficult place to power trip.

[-] halo5@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Well, from what I've seen and read, this is mostly due to the fact that @ruud (am I doing that right?) has put in the time, effort and, most importantly, the money into providing server performance necessary for lemmy.world to survive and handle the load. I wouldn't worry about centralization with Lemmy, simply due to the fact that, should @ruud all of a sudden decide to turn into a first-rate a$$hole (definitely don't see that happening from @ruud's reputation!), the exact same software works on other servers which could supplant lemmy.world should the need arise. Long story short, Lemmy is tyrant-proof, IMO.

On a related note, I would encourage those who appreciate lemmy.world to visit the homepage and contribute when they can, since the associated costs are not insignificant. Who knows what may happen 5-10 years from now; Lemmy could become the dominant platform. I have no problem with that...

[-] MiddleWeigh@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Do you know where i can donate to @ruud efforts?

[-] Qvest@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

He has an opencollective and a patreon

[-] MiddleWeigh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Thank you!!!! Exactly what I was after.

[-] Qvest@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

He has an opencollective and a patreon

[-] kring@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

the exact same software works on other servers which could supplant lemmy.world should the need arise.

But all the communities on lemmy.world would be lost. I was hoping that communities could be forked and run on a different server if needs arise, like we can do with Git repositories.

[-] Qvest@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

This is kinda already happening. Searching for tech gives me more than 3 communities that are about the same thing, all in different instances

[-] kring@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I'm more thinking about old threads. I used to search in subreddits because some information is still useful after years (guides for games, comments on movies/series, ...). The information, e.g. this thread, will only be in one instance. Even if there's a similar community in another instance, this thread will die with lenny.world.

[-] MyOpinion@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

A little bit early to be worried about this. This server is very new.

[-] hydra@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Maybe indeed it's a bit too early c:

Let's hope for a future where the Internet is the vibrant and diverse place it used to be before the big tech walled gardens.

[-] bill_1992@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

I've posted about this before and I think a lot of people disagree, but some centralization is good. There has to be a no-thought option for when people want to join Lemmy. After they learn more about federation, they can move on to another instance.

The reason why kbin grew so fast is because for a lot of people, Kbin = kbin.social (See how "kbin" links to kbin.social on: list of alternatives on Reddit)

I believe this also explains Beehaw's growth despite their onerous rules. When someone recommends Beehaw, they don't need to think about which instance of Beehaw they want to join, they just go to Beehaw.

A lot of people are dogmatic about federation, but I quite frankly think that if you are going to die on the hill, don't complain when you die.

[-] Odo@startrek.website 3 points 1 year ago

Isn't beehaw just another Lemmy instance?

[-] overzeetop@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

After they learn more about federation, they can move on to another instance.

Right...but, what if they've created a community (or communities) here on lemmy.world and decide they'd prefer to move on. The communities aren't portable. And I'm not sure how identically named communities co-exist across instances. They clearly could be separate, but co-mingling by identical names...would it cause problems? And by that I mean it would, I just don't know how it gets solved. Also, if I start a community and then abandon that instance, does the community automatically die unless there are other mods?

[-] ewe@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I think community portability will need to be built into the platform. Without that, we are one bad server owner from losing entire communities. It will inevitably happen at done point.

[-] UnicornKitty@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Wouldn't each instance have its own identifier? Like Bengals@lemmy vs Bengals@beehaw

I'm completely new to this concept so I might be thinking the wrong way.

[-] overzeetop@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

It does. I’m thinking about new people (likely far less savvy, on average) who are confused by the multiple instances as well as casual users who may think their c/Chicago is pretty small when, in reality, three other instances which have c/Chicago communities were created after they signed up are getting the bill of the traffic. Unless you regularly go search or someone happens to tip you off that there a community on another instance you’d have no idea you were missing most of the action.

It’s great that we have a bunch of technically savvy people quickly building new communities, but the fractured nature will prevent or discourage non-tech-savvy content from ever taking root. Put another way, Corporate control of the internet has dumbed down the average interface and user friction. Otherwise we’ll always just be a bunch of tech nerds - which is cool for things like selfhosted, but probably not as useful for !crocheting or !musicaltheater where the is less overlap with IT personnel. The sad fact is that reddit is easier in this way, and letting them keep/poach the average user is to the detriment of a diverse voice here.

/soapbox 😉

[-] UnicornKitty@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I didn't consider that because I don't search that way. I didn't search for specific communities. Per your example I would have searched "Chi" then slowly added letters until what I wanted came up. Chicago is proper so that doesn't really work. But there are several ways to look for autism related stuff, because it could be autism or autistic or whatever and if you just put in "auti" you get all of it. And since I saw that there can be more than one with the same community name, I know in the next few weeks I will have to keep searching for new ones.

I would rather use my energy to do that than go back to reddit. Not everybody would feel what they did was bad enough to warrant expending that energy. Okay that's not great for diversity but once things settle down it will be pretty close to that easy.

[-] Denaton@programming.dev 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

programming.dev is thriving but we are also a niche, lots of good communities for developers.

[-] lotanis@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 year ago

I think it's ok, as long as federation still works and migration is sorted out. The problem with centralisation is the control that can give. If there's a mechanism to move a community or user to a new instance without too much disruption, then the users maintain control and have recourse if the operators do something unpopular.

Mastodon has a pretty good system that automatically moves people's follows to your new account if you move. We need something like that for Lemmy.

[-] Andonome@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I don't think anyone can tell where we're going. Mastodon.social was the largest instance by far for some time, then at the deluge, it splintered.

Part of the reason for Mastodon to fracture is specialization - each instance does something unique. Maybe Lemmy will do the same, maybe not.

But if we end up with 3 primary instances, it's still decentralized - I think the most useful feature of Lemmy isn't that we're spread out, it's that we could be.

[-] anaximander@feddit.uk 3 points 1 year ago

I think this highlights a very good point. It's totally ok for everything to gravitate to a central instance as long as that instance is run in a way that everyone is happy with. The key is the the moment something changes and users aren't happy, the decentralised nature of Lemmy gives those users an exit strategy - a way to replace the bad instance and carry on.

If a single Lemmy instance becomes the new Reddit and then pulls a move that angers the community the way Reddit has recently, users wouldn't be reduced to protests and hoping that management listen, they could just spin up new instances, mirror the content, and carry on like nothing happened.

[-] kring@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

The big, bad instance could just disable federation and all communities and user accounts would be locked on that instance.

There's a ton of other messengers and there's WhatsApp but as long as my family doesn't move from WhatsApp I'm stuck with it.

[-] hydra@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

That's the thing, I don't want one instance with too much control over others. That is a gateway to reintroducing corporate corruption into the Fediverse

[-] Wooster@startrek.website 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, like how Spotify and the like are trying to take over Podcasts, which were designed to be open.

[-] hydra@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Heh, never been into Star Trek but I love how you guys have a Lemmy instance themed around it. Also Spotify was born as a peer to peer network and it still became what we have today. So I'm kinda cautious with that.

[-] Wooster@startrek.website 2 points 1 year ago

TBH, I think the Startrek Community has the right idea.

I believe Lemmy instances should treat themselves like ye olde message boards. Have a specific interest and accommodate it. So a Star Wars instance, a Marvel Instance, a DIY instance etc… They should act like message boards, but with the key advantage of linking up with the greater federation.

Things like geography aren't very conducive to finding content you're interested in.

[-] MeowdyPardner@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Yes this, and I could totally see the startrek instance growing into a hub for sci-fi related communities for example. More important than whether we are spread out is that the possibility and capability we have to spread out or migrate instances keeps instances in check by ensuring they don't have leverage or lock-in over the communities. Currently I think the main risk is communities living on 1 instance, but better instance migration tools would mostly mitigate that - imagine if you could migrate a community (which in underlying activitypub terms is very similar to a user account) to a different instance, the same way mastodon accounts can migrate between instances and keep followers.

[-] coldv@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Yeah a lot of Lemmy instances right now are mostly based on country or language, so.tnrte is some making use of the decentralisation. I'm hoping an art instance would pop up, then I might migrate.

[-] Andonome@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

An art instance is a brave move. Lemmy takes up a lot of disk space already, but encouraging images means a lot more disk space. Lemmy also allows multiple images per post.

[-] Otome-chan@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

we're doing fine here on kbin, a little too much growth tbh. lemmy.world is pretty active but it's not the only active instance :)

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[-] bumbly@readit.buzz 1 points 1 year ago

There are many other instances. Feel free to join them :)

[-] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

I wish we could transfer accounts

[-] 314xel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You can check stats on instances here.

lemmy.world is #2 by total user count (lemmy.ml being the 1st), but #1 by active users.

And judging by the Local posts and Local comments count, it seems that .world users interact more with communities in other instances than the local ones, unlike the other top instances.

So I would dare to say that your concern over content being monopolized by .world (based on subscribers to local communities) isn't founded - high number of users, but they tend to subscribe and interact more with communities on other instances.

This is of course anecdotal (same as your example), but I tend to see the opposite in my feed - few posts from communities on .world. It's very subjective based on what you subscribed to.

The high number of users on .world is because it still has open registration (server was recently upgraded beyond current capacity).

[-] Parallax@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

It makes me so fucking happy that I'm somewhere in that graph.

[-] passport@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

The high number of users on .world is because it still has open registration

I wonder if accounts on certain servers will be "prestigious" one day lol

[-] pilvlp@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

Where's kbin on that list?

[-] ElSapo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Kbin is another software altogether from lemmy, so they are not counted.

[-] Otome-chan@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

we're not a lemmy instance so we wouldn't be on there at all.

[-] Peereboominc@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

I think that is true. Could be because instances like Lemmy.ml don't let new users create an account, beehaw unfederated other instances and kbin also has some problems with federation.. So, only Lemmy.world can really thrive I guess. Other instances I have not seen that much. Maybe sh.itjust.works (or something like that) are thriving but I don't know.

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[-] Seismos@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

I think people(people includes me, I think the majority of users are new to this stuff) still don't get that unless a certain instance de-federalizes others en masse, you're still gonna be able to access it's content and contribute from your instance.

Although, in general,I wouldn't be worried. Even if a certain instance is getting big, you are still not subject to the whims of some venture capitalist corp in silicon valley.

[-] hydra@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

still don't get that unless a certain instance de-federalizes others en masse, you're still gonna be able to access it's content and contribute from your instance. Sadly it just happened with beehaw.org, one large instance defederating another. That's a pretty big wall.

Although, in general,I wouldn't be worried. Even if a certain instance is getting big, you are still not subject to the whims of some venture capitalist corp in silicon valley. Sadly corporations love to control everything and always end up giving small startups offers that are too good to refuse and they either take it over or shelf it forever. I really don't want corporate control to return to the web. Reddit swallowed all the forums due to how convenient it was.

[-] Seismos@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

I'm aware of beehaw defederating. However, you gotta see how it happened. They were completely transparent about why they did it, and that it's not permanent. Once moderation tools start to get added, we'll probably see re-federation.

[-] ZephyrXero@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

I think we'll see a bunch of the top communities gravitate towards a few instances, but the userbase will spread out over time. Right now people are going to the biggest, b/c they just want to get on and try it out. But over time as people learn how to work with this new system they'll venture out to others. I could see a lot of people eventually hosting their own instance just for their one user, but have no communities of its own.

But for communities, finding an instance that has the right rules and plugins available will lead them to looking for trusted servers to moderate them from. As long as what Beehaw's doing doesn't become a trend, it should be fine

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[-] CodingAndCoffee@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

You're not wrong. There needs to be slightly better/more informative marketing that your communities are accessible from anywhere, and locale of the server doesn't matter.

People are joining lemmy.world before they learn/understand they can access communities from any federated node (which is nearly everything except beehaw)

[-] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It doesn't help that most instances are named/marketed as being for a specific subset of people. Like French, Canadian, LGBTQ, NSFW, US midwest, etc etc. Lemmy.world is generic enough to appeal to most new users.

you have Lemmy saying, "join anywhere!", but then all the instances are like "only join here if you are X, Y, or Z!". It is understandably confusing for new people.

[-] exscape@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Federation seems to have its issues though, unfortunately. I created a post on lemmy.world earlier today (in hardware@lemmy.ml), and it took about 15 minutes for it to show up on lemmy.ml and sopuli.xyz.

If we consider something that is breaking news, 15 minutes is WAY too slow; there will be tons of duplicates posted from dozens of instances, even if they are posting to the exact same community.

[-] CodingAndCoffee@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

That's most likely happening because of the over-centralization. If your origin server had been smaller federation to/from it and !hardware@lemmy.ml would have been significantly faster. Having a no-nonsense "urgent news" lemmy instance act as a hub for faster federation would be a great value-add for the community as a whole.