Interesting, my experience was the opposite. I was put off for a long time with how de-federation meant I couldn't access the whole unfiltered lemmyverse from most instances, I only joined when I found an instance that doesn't de-federate. Then I subscribed to the communities I wanted and use subscribed as my default view.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 5 points 1 day ago

That's the way to go about it for sure, I haven't been on /All for like two years I think. A carefully curated /Subscribed as home feed is the best way to do it.

[–] Libb@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

100% agree. Those (avoid All and browse by Subscribed only + a careful selection of the communities I'm subscribed to) belong to the the 'filtering tools' I mentioned.... When I first joined Lemmy they were just not active by default, which heavily contributed in making the experience so... not great. It's a topic I regularly mention, and a method I encourage new users to quickly try ;)