I mean… (to be, what’s the word, pedantic?:-P) hexbear.net still exists though? And it is their choice if they want to convert to PieFed rather than remain with Lemmy. I am 100% certain that lemmy.ml will never do so though:-D.
So fwiw I agree whole-heartedly with what you said, and that, imho, is what https://piefed.social/auth/instance_chooser provides? Any other new instance can make their own choice, and I like those GUI options much better. Like when I think of “lemmy.ml”, the “Technology” aspect and the phrase “A community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, run by Lemmy’s developers” is nowhere close to the top few thoughts that spring into my mind. And hexbears aren’t even leftist, only pretending to be such. But the “choose your own adventure” category, in opposition to “Newbie-friendly”, I feel like MUCH better describes both lemmy.ml and hexbear, wouldn’t you agree?
Skavau@piefed.social 2 hours ago
The primary problem here is that because lemmy.world isn’t visible, the instance picker when organised by activity determines lemmy.ml to be the most popular instance and then not far-off, hexbear. That’s not good long-term if people are shepherded into those instances without really knowing their context.