As a result, our instance https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/ got 625 new user registrations (of which 536 where accepted) in the past 24 hours! And the registrations are not abating even now. We still get like 10 new ones per hour!
I suspect this is probably the largest advertisement, for lemmy specifically, since the main reddit blackouts 1.5 years ago.
Have your own instances also seen an influx of new users?
Thanks. I think at the time I made an instance (about a year and a half ago I reckon), there was quite a batch snapping up kbin/lemmy on every tld imaginable.
It’s actually not a bad idea. “The front page of the threadiverse” so to speak. There are plenty of instance lookups out there, but they’re generally self discovered. Something that helps match a user to a smaller instance cannot be a bad thing.
Having large instances is a good thing of course, especially for hosting larger communities. But, in order to remain fully independent, smaller instances that can be run truly as a hobby on affordable hardware are essential for the fediverse in my opinion.
I think it’s also a bit utopian to expect everyone to make an informed decision about which small instance to sign up for right away. It could be nice to have a little overview ready for whoever has been using lemmy.world or some other big instance for a while, understands how the fediverse works, and wants to migrate to a smaller instance for some reason or another.
Personally I wasn’t really sure where to go after Kbin.social, and my decision on Kbin.earth was pretty random. Happy with my decision though!