It feels like many Lemmy instances end up trying to be “Reddit replacements,” which results in dozens of very similar communities with overlapping topics. I wonder if it would make more sense for each instance to focus on a broad topic, like sports, literature, or technology, and then have communities for the subtopics within that.
What are your thoughts? Do you prefer many general instances, or would you rather see topic-focused instances?
I think it’s because it deters some people from joining the instance. Yes, an instance with more focus like slrpnk doesn’t necessarily mean they only talk about climate, as you can interact with other federated instances anyway. But people who are new or aren’t very familiar with how federation works gravitate towards general purpose instances because they either don’t have a preference or they don’t want to be “locked in” to a focused instance (even if it’s not true), or that access to content will be limited (also not true). That’s why .world and .ee (rip) are/were popular.