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.
The people running the servers. Check your local instance details to see who runs the server. And yes, they can shut down at any time, so consider donating to help with the server costs if you’re a heavy user.
Lemmy: not really. Fediverse: kinda, yeah. Threads is the biggest, followed probably by WordPress and Flipboard. Tumblr is also working on joining the Fediverse. None of those companies will likely ever work with Lemmy/Kbin, though. There are also a few small companies that you can pay to set up a Mastodon server for you.
With the fediverse, Don’t forget the government’s that have started up their own mastodon instances, and larger news orgs like bbc