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Why do people tend to pile onto the same instance? Is there some benefit I’m missing?
Because of the fediverse partial mesh, leading to incomplete timeline view, or inconsistency depending the instance you’re on.
People tend to flock on primary, massive instances because they are well know of course, but also because this is where you have the most complete view, and from there your posts reaches many other instances.
Ah, I didn’t know about the incomplete timeline / mesh propagation issue. Sounds like a notable incentive.
Also different instances hide different communities and so they don't show up at all unless you are a direct subscriber.
I learned about this on my instance when some news communities were hidden, turns out my instance has quite a list of hidden communities, which isn't a bad thing, but it can contribute to the incomplete timeline issue and if you don't know about the hidden communities feature its very hard to diagnose why you're not seeing what you expect to see.
In my case I wasn't subscribed to some of the news communities because I would catch the top posts in /all, which keeps my subscribed feed focused on things I'm actively interested in. So hidden communities are a challenge when you use /all and /subbed in that way.
Great tip! Might save someone some time troubleshooting that issue.
Yes. Decentralization has many benefits.