If you’re reading this then you likely already know that Lemmy and Kbin are alternatives to Reddit.

This is an introduction to the basics of Lemmy/Kbin and how they’re different from what you’re already used to.

Basics of the Fediverse

A useful comparison is to think about how e-mail works. There are different e-mail platforms (e.g. Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc), but they all use a common protocol to send and receive messages between themselves.

Even though your mailbox may be with Gmail, you can exchange e-mails with any other mailbox, irrespective of either or not they are also with Gmail. None of these platforms own or control “e-mail” as a whole.

The Fediverse is a similar concept but applied to social media. Lemmy is a flavour of Fediverse software, the same as Kbin. Anyone can host a Lemmy or Kbin instance, and they all use a common protocol to communicate with each so that content posted on one is available to all. This federated network of nodes is referred to as the Fediverse.

Not one instance of Lemmy or Kbin owns or controls the Fediverse as a whole, they are just different ways of accessing that content, similar to how Gmail or Yahoo are just different ways of using e-mail.

Centralized (Reddit) vs decentralized (Lemmy/Kbin)

Reddit:

• There is only one ‘instance’ of Reddit. The entirety of Reddit’s content and userbase is hosted on that instance.
• If you get banned from a subreddit, then you lose access to that particular subreddit. If you get banned from Reddit, then you lose access to the whole of Reddit.
• If you don’t like where Reddit is going or you dislike how it’s managed, then your only recourse is to give up Reddit entirely.
• In our e-mail example, it’s the equivalent of one entity owning ‘e-mail’ as a whole. Don’t like it? Invent your own e-mail!

Lemmy/Kbin:

• There are many different instances of Lemmy/Kbin. The Fediverse population and content is split between them.
• Users from any Lemmy/Kbin instance are able to interact with content and users from all other Fediverse instances, as if we’re all in the same place.
• If you get banned from a community (equivalent of a subreddit), then you lose access to that particular community, on that instance. You can still interact with similar communities on different instances.
• If you get banned from an instance, then you only lose access to that particular instance. You can always join another instance that may suit you better.
• If you don’t like where a particular instance is going or you dislike how it’s managed, then you can simply find another instance that better matches what you’re looking for.
• Not one instance owns the Fediverse as a whole.

The Good, the Bad and the Confusing

The Good:

• Nobody owns or controls the Fediverse. It is also very resilient thanks to its distributed nature.
• You can join the instance that best fits your preference or philosophy, but still have access to the content and users of any other instance.
• You can create posts in communities belonging to any instance, not just the one you are using.
• You don’t need to join the biggest instance to access the best content. In fact, you’ll likely get a better experience by joining a smaller, less congested instance.
• There’s something here for everyone. With so many different instances, it’s near impossible not to find one you like.

The Bad:

• Instances can choose to defederate from other instances they don’t agree with. This is fundamentally a desirable feature, but it can also give large instances quite a bit of power and leverage over smaller ones.
• There is currently no way to back up or migrate a community from one instance to the other. Imagine you’ve invested a lot of time and effort growing your community, only for the instance that it’s hosted on to dissappear into the night forever.
• People tend to instinctively join the largest instance, somewhat diminishing the benefits of federation. The large instances buckle under their own weight while smaller instances struggle to get any traction. Performance strains on the large instances lead to laggy content propagation across the Fediverse as a whole.

The Confusing:

• Similar to e-mail, usernames are only unique on that particular instance. This means that you can have bob@instance.example and bob@otherinstance.example - this is not a bad thing, but can be a bit confusing at first.
• The same is true for communities! The same community name can exist on multiple instances, each with their own subscriber base and content, e.g. !cars@instance.example and !cars@otherinstance.example
• Lemmy/Kbin still require a lot of development and there are many quirks to work through. Some of these quirks produce confusing behaviour (more on these in a future post).

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