Trying to wrap my head around the fediverse. Is each instance like another person with a server? Could that person just shut it down whenever they wanted to?
Are there any companies that have invested in hosting Lemmy/ other fediverse servers?
Sorry I’m sure I messed up some of the terminology, I hope my questions make sense! I love the idea of the fediverse as I understand it, but I like to dig into these details.
each domain is hosted by individual groups. lemmy.world lemmy.ml sh.itjust.works individually managed and ran.
In simple terms, each individual server sends and receives content from all of the others and displays it to you. You can interact with lemmy.ml via lemmy.world, for example.
Any individual server could shutdown however content has been shared (federated) to other servers (instances) and stored so depending on content retention, it’s still available.
You can also run a server yourself.
Usually, servers are referred to as instances.
There are types in the fediverse, such as mastodon. Content is shared between them but displayed differently
In terms of commercial interest, facebook wants to eventually federate with their threads app.
Everything else is opensource and community funded, I believe
So cool! Thanks for clarifying some of the terminology for me as well.