Is there any point to creating accounts across multiple Lemmy servers? For example if I wanted to claim the same username on a small hobby Lemmy but also a large general purpose one, does it make sense for me to create multiple accounts, or is that just a waste of time/resources?

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[–] WatDabney@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ah - I get a chance to preach.

I think it makes a lot of sense, and I've been trying to convince people of that since I've been here. It costs nothing and provides benefits, and what more could anyone want?

When I first came to Lemmy, I couldn't figure out any reason to pick one specific instance, and I finally decided that the only way to know if it mattered was to create multiple accounts and compare them. So I did.

I sort of intended to eventually settle on one, but as it turned out, I never really did, and in fact have added a number of accounts since.

The first and most notable thing I discovered is that every instance is different. Unsurprisingly, specialty instances like ani.social and literature.cafe are different from the general instances, but even the general instances differ from each other just depending on which other instances they're federated with and which communities they carry.

I default to All on most instances, and All on lemm.ee, for instance, is significantly different from All on Sopuli, or from All on dbzer0, or from All on Beehaw, and so on. So I can effectively tailor my experience simply by using different accounts.

I generally have about three general accounts that I cycle between, with another few specialty ones - either specialized by topic, like ani.social, or specialized by bias, like .ml. I find that's enough so that pretty much no matter what I'm in the mood for, I have an account that fits.

Additionally, from a more simple practical perspective, instances change over time, and are sometimes shut down entirely. That's never directly affected my experience, since I always have other accounts. So for instance, when .world started to decline, I just stopped using it, and when lemmy.ninja shut down (RIP), I just spent more time on other instances. And as new instances pop up, or just come to my attention, I just make an account, then take them for a test drive and see what I think. I've discovered a number of good instances that way.

So... yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense and it's pretty much effortless and entirely free, so there's no reason not to do it.

[–] pageflight@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How do you manage switching between accounts? I ideally just want one feed.

[–] WatDabney@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

I access lemmy through Firefox, and I just have bookmarks for all of my accounts and have whichever ones I'm using the most pinned. Switching from one to another is just a matter of clicking a link.

I don't know of any way to combine everything into one feed, though I wouldn't be surprised if one or more of the apps will do it. That's exactly the opposite of what I value though - I don't want just one feed - I want whichever feed I happen to be in the mood for at the moment.