Timeline of total users at the top 10 Lemmy instances
public.flourish.studio
A Flourish data visualization by Gabino3503

Two timelines I created of the total users at the top 10 Lemmy instances as a bar chart race and as a line chart. The line chart only includes the current top 10 Lemmy instances as of the 9th of June 2023 because Flourish only allows ten lines at a time.

I used the Federation to determine the current top 10 Lemmy instances as of the 9th of June and the 14th of July 2023. The website only has sorting function for the current data, and the instances have to opt in to be included. Therefore, it is likely that some instances are not included. Furthermore, the website seems to only contain data from the last year, so the website do not have documentation on the top instances prior to this period. Additionally, I excluded instances that have had quick growth in total users but not in posts and comments.

  •  LemmyAtem   ( @LemmyAtem@beehaw.org ) 
    9•11 months ago

    Most people don’t really get how federation works

    This is 100% me, but my understanding is that you can see all community content and interact with everyone regardless of what server you’re on, is that more or less correct? I went with beehaw because it seemed moderately popular (I’d read that servers can disappear, and figure more users=less likely?) and is focused on keeping out assholes, which I am 100% cool with.

    •  amanneedsamaid   ( @amanneedsamaid@sopuli.xyz ) 
      5•11 months ago

      As long as the instances who’s content you’re trying to interact with are federating with your instance (beehaw), then you can interact with everyone, yes. It’s important to keep in mind instances can choose to not federate entirely, or selectively block certain instances from interacting with theirs, although this isn’t something you should have to worry about.

    •  The Gay Tramp   ( @TheGayTramp@lemmy.ca ) 
      4•11 months ago

      A good analogy I’m seeing thrown around is email: everyone has their own email provider - gmail, yahoo, outlook, or a corporate email server, etc - but all of those can send and receive emails from every other one. I have gmail, but I can email you at yahoo, and recieve emails from my friend on hotmail. If gmail starts being shitty and corporate or making decisions I don’t like, I can switch to a different provider, and crucially, gmail doesn’t get to decide how the rest of the email universe behaves.

      Lemmy instances are like the email providers, and “sending emails” is like interacting with communites on any instance. If my Lemmy instance starts serving ads or something I can just leave it, and still have access to all the other communites on every other instance.