EDIT: we just crossed 30K 🥳

We are now at 28.5K users (see https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list). The top 10 instances also got a decent boost in user count. With the exception of beehaw.org which defederated, the Fediverse is thriving 🔥

    • SickIcarus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      It’s gotta start somewhere though. It makes sense that as refugees flock over they’ll gravitate towards the largest instance, because the expectation is that’s where the usage is and they don’t yet grok how the Fediverse works. As they settle in, I’d expect a number of them to spread out a bit. Once we can migrate accounts I’d expect the load to be distributed even better.

      • pzza@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Load would not be distributed though right? Because all the user data / activity would just be copied to every federating instance. Fediverse is more about redundancy & lack of centralized control, rather than load balancing.

        • SickIcarus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Yes and no? Maybe? I’m still figuring out how all this works lol. I know that instances take on the load of their users and communities.

          • pzza@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            As I understand it the federation protocol is copying all the data from instance to instance. I think data is probably going to be the most taxing part of running a social media site, but since all the data is replicated, there wont be much load sharing there. Each instance will be taking care of the cpu/load requirements of rendering/serving the pages for their users, so there is some scaling benefits there to distribution. Anyway, I’m also still learning as well! I think we all are lol