…and I am sure there are many others. I just think that having a focus like that provides a more interesting local instance environment than a large, generalist instance, though both have a place.
The nice thing with these instances is content discovery (easy to find more communities about a single topic), but there’s a downside as well: they create a lot of centralization in Lemmy.
If you’re mostly on Lemmy for a specific topic, and one instance has consolidated almost all discussion around that topic, then your entire Lemmy experience is controlled by a single instance. In other words, despite the whole network being decentralized, users in such situations are still getting effectively the same kind of downsides they would get on something like Reddit.
Yes, like I just learned about gearhead.town which is focused on vehicles (cars, motorcycles, etc.), which is an idea I’d had myself but I’m nowhere near skilled enough to operate an instance right now.
I am a big fan of content-specific instances. Some instances off the top of my head that fit this description:
…and I am sure there are many others. I just think that having a focus like that provides a more interesting local instance environment than a large, generalist instance, though both have a place.
The nice thing with these instances is content discovery (easy to find more communities about a single topic), but there’s a downside as well: they create a lot of centralization in Lemmy.
If you’re mostly on Lemmy for a specific topic, and one instance has consolidated almost all discussion around that topic, then your entire Lemmy experience is controlled by a single instance. In other words, despite the whole network being decentralized, users in such situations are still getting effectively the same kind of downsides they would get on something like Reddit.
Few more listed on the links here
https://fedecan.ca/en/guide/lemmy/for-users/how-to-find-communities#_3-look-through-other-instances-🌐
mander.xyz is nice for all the STEM communities
Crazy that there’s an instance about Ascendance of a Bookworm. I’ve just been reading this!
Yes, like I just learned about gearhead.town which is focused on vehicles (cars, motorcycles, etc.), which is an idea I’d had myself but I’m nowhere near skilled enough to operate an instance right now.