If you mean to choose a Yet Another Small Community of Users, there’s never been a shortage of those, and there’s barely a need for the federated space for that.
If you don’t want to see how abusing power to remove and drive users away from communities removes and drives users away from communities, I don’t know what to tell you, but I think people are coming to the federated space seeking alternatives to reddit and twitter, not just small communities, so unless something is done about the federated architecture, what happens to access to the biggest communities will always matter in regards to population numbers.
If a user gets their account banned and purged for barely any reason but extreme escalation, I think that will always be a concern - you have no assurance that users will simply create another account and remain. If there’s going to be abuse by the leadership in the alternative, why would anyone who comments on RedditMigration simply remain in the fediverse and not go back to Reddit? If you are going to get falsely accused accused and banned for shit reasons, even to the point of an admin of the most popular instance fabricating accusations that you are an alt of a CSAM account, why would most people remain?
Nothing is stopping the user from accessing lemmy.world communities from the alternative instance they chose (unless it has defederated). It’s just that in this case lemmy.world did not want to be responsible for the user’s content.
Abusing admins is nothing new and with reddit you have absolutely 0 recourse besides making a new account at the mercy of the very same admins. On Lemmy at least you can select another instance and still access the same content.
My point is, if you are going to be dealing with it anyway, why would you participate in the social network that is order of magnitudes smaller? You can access content on reddit without an account, the problem is participating alongside the community.
For all intents and purposes, since you are still locked out on lemmy from doing because of its server-centric communities regardless of which instance you choose, it boils down to the same outcome for the same desired goal - creating an alt - except with an order of magnitudes smaller reward - far less population and engagement than on reddit.
So rather than sticking to lemmy, it seems natural that people go back to their old but bigger platforms.
Federated is great for maintaining persistence of your account beyond the whims of fickle admins, but that’s a tertiary problem. No one is that exited about keeping their user history, they are excited about participating with everyone else about the topic that is being discussed.
It’s not worthless, but I can understand it explaining some of the decreasing population numbers if they encounter it even just once after months of participating on the platform because of how disruptive it is. No one is normally going to stick around a community when only the fraction of the local users in your own lemmy instance can view it.
Man in Black : All right. Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right… and who is dead.
Vizzini : But it’s so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy’s? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black : You’ve made your decision then?
Vizzini : Not remotely. Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.
Man in Black : Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Vizzini : Wait till I get going! Now, where was I?
Man in Black : Australia.
Vizzini : Yes, Australia. And you must have suspected I would have known the powder’s origin, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black : You’re just stalling now.
Vizzini : You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? You’ve beaten my giant, which means you’re exceptionally strong, so you could’ve put the poison in your own goblet, trusting on your strength to save you, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But, you’ve also bested my Spaniard, which means you must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that man is mortal, so you would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black : You’re trying to trick me into giving away something. It won’t work.
Vizzini : IT HAS WORKED! YOU’VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHERE THE POISON IS!
Man in Black : Then make your choice.
Vizzini : I will, and I choose… what in the world can that be?
[Vizzini gestures up and away from the table. The Man in Black looks backwards. Vizzini swaps the goblets]
Man in Black : What? Where? I don’t see anything.
Vizzini : Well, I- I could have sworn I saw something. But no matter.
[Vizzini tries to hold back laughter]
Man in Black : What’s so funny?
Vizzini : I’ll tell you in a minute. First, let’s drink. Me from my glass, and you from yours.
[Vizzini and the Man in Black drink]
Man in Black : You guessed wrong.
Vizzini : You only think I guessed wrong! That’s what’s so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - the most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia” - but only slightly less well-known is this: “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line”! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha…
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