Correct me if I’m wrong. I read ActivityPub standards and dug a little into lemmy sources to understand how federation works. And I’m a bit disappointed. Every server just has a cache and the ability to fetch something from another known server. So if you start your own instance, there is no profit for the whole network until you have a significant piece of auditory (e.g. private instances or servers with no users). Are there any “balancers” to utilize these empty instances? Should we promote (or create in the first place) a way how to passively help lemmy with such fast growth?
But only once, even if you open the content several times. And without transferring all the Web UI with it. And on the sending servers’ own terms related to when to send or if at all. On the other hand the server has to send any changes in a subscribed topic, regardless of you being interested in it.
Overall I still would still think it is a benefit to run your own instance.