I think it does matter, actually, as some instances get blocked and unfederated. But, there would still be so much access elsewhere it may not matter much. Generally, I would take a best guess at a first instance, see how it goes, and be open to making different account elsewhere as needed.
I have been lurking on the GitHub, and it seems quite a few people want the ability to port your account from one server to another. It was initially dismissed and the request was closed, but people made good points, like what happens if a server shuts down? Folks on that server just lose all their history? Those comments got lots of thumbs up reactions, and the request got reopened.
Hopefully at some point we can get that feature and making the wrong early choice will matter less.
Agreed, I want that too. But also, what if the server shut down before you had a chance to export and move it? Could accounts be mirrored on to multiple instances as fallback backups? would be nice. Could accounts be ‘semi-independent’ of instances somehow?
I don’t see how a mirror could work. Would your account info/password be copied over to all instances in case you switch? Anyone can spin a Lemmy instance; anyone could copy your account that way without your knowledge. It is good that it lives only on one instance. Your old comments and posts will still exist in other instances where they were copied over but you will have to continue with a new account. If you want to collect karma it can be annoying but otherwise it will not make much of a difference.
The defederation thing just led me to making accounts on different servers. Jerboa allows multiple accounts, so I just use the different instances to split the communities I subscribe to by theme. Sciences for mander.xyz, tech and dev on programming.dev… It keeps my front pages organized.
I think it does matter, actually, as some instances get blocked and unfederated. But, there would still be so much access elsewhere it may not matter much. Generally, I would take a best guess at a first instance, see how it goes, and be open to making different account elsewhere as needed.
I have been lurking on the GitHub, and it seems quite a few people want the ability to port your account from one server to another. It was initially dismissed and the request was closed, but people made good points, like what happens if a server shuts down? Folks on that server just lose all their history? Those comments got lots of thumbs up reactions, and the request got reopened.
Hopefully at some point we can get that feature and making the wrong early choice will matter less.
Agreed, I want that too. But also, what if the server shut down before you had a chance to export and move it? Could accounts be mirrored on to multiple instances as fallback backups? would be nice. Could accounts be ‘semi-independent’ of instances somehow?
I don’t see how a mirror could work. Would your account info/password be copied over to all instances in case you switch? Anyone can spin a Lemmy instance; anyone could copy your account that way without your knowledge. It is good that it lives only on one instance. Your old comments and posts will still exist in other instances where they were copied over but you will have to continue with a new account. If you want to collect karma it can be annoying but otherwise it will not make much of a difference.
Technically you’re right. From the user’s perspective they want their accounts to be resilient and untethered.
The defederation thing just led me to making accounts on different servers. Jerboa allows multiple accounts, so I just use the different instances to split the communities I subscribe to by theme. Sciences for mander.xyz, tech and dev on programming.dev… It keeps my front pages organized.