this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Fediverse
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It's less efficient than a centralized forum would be, but efficiency isn't the only or even the highest priority. Decentralization is the explicit point of the fediverse, and to the degree that that requires sacrificing some measure of efficiency, that's just the way it goes.
The goal was to build a system that would be robust and relatively seamless while remaining decentralized. That's more or less what they've done. There's a fair amount of fine tuning and tweaking left to be done, and actively being done, but the basic system is what it is because it best balances all of the goals.
Also, all data isn't stored on every Lemmy I stance, only (or mostly I guess) where it is relevant.
Right, which on a side note is most of why I have accounts on a number of different instances and regularly switch between them - because each instance is at least subtly different, since they each have different userbases, and thus somewhat different sets of subscribed and thus federated communities.
But if you on instance.alpha subscribe to a community on instance.beta that would federate the community to your local instance, right? Is there something I'm missing?
Right, but of course if you don't subscribe to it (and nobody else does) then it doesn't.
So, for instance, if you go in through an account on a narrowly specialized instance, you're potentially not going to see a lot of the communities from other instances at all, even on their All, just because nobody's bothered to subscribe to them. And you'll likely see highly specialized communities that fit well with that instance that you might not see anywhere else.
The smaller the instance is, the more likely that is.
I have accounts on a couple of small instances on which I haven't even bothered to subscribe to anything, since their All already matches what I want frim the instsnce.