Well, it doesn't implicitly mean “survey all instances when making a new account and calculate where your additional account will average out the numbers.” 🙄
ee wasn't big originally, but it was one of the few instances that were big enough to not dissappear, run by a competent sys admin, and small enough to not be affected by the big instance performance challenges, while keep registrations open when many instances shut the door on newcomers. Basically, ee, sh.itjust.works and lemmy.world were there main options for people moving across. Their sensible stewardship has led to growth, and trust is why it has kept growing.
Federation means people can choose, and they do. It doesn't mean everything will be exactly the same size and stay small. An instance needs good sysadmin who will investigate issues an liase with dev teams to get them fixed. People will gravitate to those instances run by talented devs.
People will gravitate to those instances run by talented devs.
Eh, people gravitate to where everyone else is. Half of the fediverse doesn't realize federation means, you can read/post to most communities from most instances, bar federation issues. They see, OH HEY, Lemmy World has the most posts. I want to go where all of the posts are.
People RUN from instances, whenever the instance starts breaking, and the admins show their ineptitude. Either that, or when instances start clicking the defederation button too much.
How did ee, and sh.itjust.works grow? Because they were open. You have a short memory if you don't remember how many instances closed, during API blackout.
I didn't want to pick an instance that was running on a thinkpad that would get switched off when someone got bored.
Federation was confusing for many. Many used the join Lemmy website and options that were general purpose open instances that were English speaking and open were not huge. People made decisions in a short period of time and many went with world, ee, and sh.it. It isn't baffling. It is also no shock that people set up communities where they register and may be big enough to survive. Who would create a community that disappears in 3 weeks.
You painting users as brainless sheep does nothing more than give you some feeling superiority. Maybe your fragile ego needs that. I'll help if you need it. Congratulations, you're so smart and clever. More so than most. Thanks for stepping on your soap box and imparting your wisdom/red hot takes upon us.