Not sure if this is the right place for this, still getting used to lemmy! I’m a bit confused on some things and I’m hoping people can answer for me.

  • What happens to the communities/comments/accounts if a lemmy instance goes down? Do they just disappear?

  • Can people on other instances use your username? Could others tell which is which in comments/posts?

  • How can people afford to host an instance? Aren’t there costs to hosting a server?

  • Is there anything stopping corporate interests hosting a lemmy? I fear that these corporate instances will be the only ones that can handle large traffic and we’re just back to Reddit.

  • Can an instance go from fully federated to partially without telling it’s users? How would they know?

Thank you for your answers!

  • rawrspace
    1•2 years ago
    • you’re right, the username isn’t showing the domain for me. I have to click on the profile to see the full username. Maybe it was the web UI where I was seeing the extension. That would be an improvement.
    • yea I think the idea is to have a bunch of hosts
    • I agree, if this is going to work the popular communities need to spread out between many different instances.
    • I have seen that advice but I think it is somewhat important for the reasons you said.
    • 4•2 years ago

      Each account has a username and an optional display name. If the account has a display name, that’s what you see. If the account doesn’t have a display name, you see their username. If they are on the same instance as you, the instance is omitted from the username (in the UI, anyway).