I'd move to a closer instance, if I new they were in it for the long run and not shut down when they get bored after a few months.
What happens if the instance I'm registered to decides to shut down?
I have to agree here. I went through this same issue with Mastodon when I joined a smaller instance "mastodon.lol". It shut down without any apparent notice to me (using a third-party app). I had to start from scratch and mastodon even has an account migration feature.
I can't in good conscience tell a less technical friend "oh go use a smaller instance" when that means they can come across a dead-looking thread or community (that just hasn't been federated to them yet) or suddenly lose their account when their instance disappears with little to no notice.
I'm starting to realize that it's only the links that are decentralized and not, what I'd hoped for but was maybe obvious, my data/account.
I've asked over at [email protected] if anyone can register any nickname on any instance - essentially spoofing a user but on a different instance. Or if a username is "taken" across the fediverse.
Edit: anyone can register any ones username on a different instance. Spoofing/scamming isn't handled very good?
Edit2: post and comment data is federated too, so your posts won't dissappear, but might dis-converge(?) into multiple versions depending on things? :) This post helped me understand some of it: https://lemmy.world/comment/205763
I had a weird bug where someone had the same user name as me and was posting a bunch of stuff, mostly in star trek subs. It only happened on mobile. At first I thought my account was stolen but I was able to log in on pc. I wonder if I had accidentally logged in as someone with the same name on another instance.
I’m experimenting hosting my own instance, not to build communities, just as a “gateway” to federate to other instances, in case one of them is unreachable, I still get posts from the ones which are still available. When lemmy.world clogged up a few hours ago, I couldn’t see posts from lemmy.ml since basic operations on lemmy.world timeouted and my feed couldn’t be loaded. Am I using Lemmy wrong, or are these galaxy brain moves (honest question)?