Not sure if someone has already coined a term for "a feeling when you don't know which Mastodon server to join", but I'm currently here. I am probably wrong, but joining some themed server makes me think that I should be writing and discussing only about that theme and nothing else. Or joining a server not from your region just feels wrong. Of course, I could just spin my own instance, but how to make it attractive to other users, because one user per server ain't very optimal.
I wound up creating two. One is on hachyderm.io, which is a medium-large instance with lots of k8s nerds. The other is self hosted.
I’m leaning towards just keeping the hachyderm account. Self hosting on digital ocean is a bit more than $50/mo. Instance is underutilized with basically just me on there. I think I’ll maintain a self-hosted fediverse home, but:
- I want to run it in my homelab to avoid cloud fees
- I’ll move from Mastodon to something lighter, like maybe Pleroma.
- I need to figure out how to bootstrap enough subscriptions to make an independent instance useful.
Really, I think we need more managed hosting options. The only one I know of is masto.host, and they’ve frozen signups.
Honestly just pick a medium sized instance with a theme that interests you. You're not expected to only post about that theme at all. The local timeline will be useful because it'll have a lot of people interested in -- though not necessarily posting about -- the theme.
Huge instances are bad because it's like drinking from a firehose. There's too many people with too many diverse interests. Tiny instances are bad because it makes discovery hard. On a medium instance you simply browse the local timeline to find interesting people, and their boosts will introduce you to people from other servers. Which also explains why boosting is way more important on mastodon than retweeting is on the bird site.
Worst comes to worst you can migrate fairly easily to a different instance. Possibly a self-hosted one once you've built a bit of a network of people to follow, since by then the discovery problem is solved.
I had Mastodoubt, torn between not mastodon.social because it’s going to be too big and internetofshit’s server because that’s silly and small. I read that a searcher will only see you if there’s already a connection between their server and yours. I went with mastodon.world.
Fedilab, from F-Droid, ties into ntfy.sh [0], which is wonderful. It means I still recieve notifications from Fedilab and Element, without needing Google Play Services.
One user per server is absolutelty fine. Don't fall for the hype telling you that you MUST be part of an existing instance: the Fediverse goes beyond your server.
Honestly at this point if you don't want to self host just pick any random instance. If/when you decide it's not the right fit, moving is a straightforward operation.
