There was a good comment by @[email protected] the other day on an angry anti-.ml post:

Before joining Lemmy: “It really doesn’t matter what instance you join, you’ll be able to see content from all over.”

After joining Lemmy: “So you’ve enlisted in .world, eh? Welcome to the fight, soldier!”

What’s the beef here? I’m out of the loop.

Lemmy.world is very liberal leaning and defederated from the Marxist aligned instances. Lemmy.ml is more broadly federated and has Marxist mods and admins, and more leftist users in general.

That’s it. Some users make it a fight.

I’m pretty progressive leaning and just joined .world because I had no idea what lemmy was and was tired of reddit but I thought it didn’t matter what one you joined since you can see all the other instances correct? Or am I wrong here, like if I go to All it shows pose from all instances? Have been curious why I have seen so much far left as in comrade leftist post so I guess that adds up if .world is where they mainly hang out. But again I still don’t completely understand lemmy but I enjoy it more than reddit

Instances are like islands, with bridges between others. Some instances sever their bridges to other islands so their citizens can’t see any of that content and the other island’s users can’t comment.

Lemmy.world is defederated from instances like Hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml, so you can’t see their comment. Hexbear is mostly an Anarchist and Marxist hangout, Lemmygrad is specifically Marxist-Leninist and takes itself a bit more seriously. Your “All” feed doesn’t show anything from them.

Instances also matter because some have great local feeds based on niche interests, that’s part of why I like Hexbear and find it great to browse locally. .world is more of a Reddit replication.