Yeah, I'm one of the confused casual users. Can you explain how the instances work? This morning I created an account on my pc but had no time to browse. I downloaded an app called jerboa a few minutes ago. The front page had memes and fun things. I logged into lemmy.world instance and that content is gone. Do I have to have an account for each instance? Are the instances like separate websites?

[–] andobando@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

All the accounts and posts can communicate/share across the instances, but each instance has its own database of posts.

The example people give is that is like email. You can have licenensedtoill@gmail but you can send messages someone @yahoo.

You dont have to create a seperate account for each instance. And on whatever instance youre on you can browse and post on communities of any other instance.

Theres definitely some work to be done to make this all more intuitive though

[–] Licensed_to_ill@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does that mean someone else can have the same username as me on a separate instance?

[–] andobando@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, just like with email.