Is each instance like another person with a server?
Yes.
Could that person just shut it down whenever they wanted to?
Yes.
Are there any companies that have invested in hosting Lemmy/ other fediverse servers?
Idk, they’d be very niche.
Sorry I’m sure I messed up some of the terminology, I hope my questions make sense!
Nah, you pretty much nailed it.
Lemmy, and a lot of the fediverse, functions very similarly to email. Gmail can send emails to Proton even though they’re hosted by two completely separate companies. A post/comment/vote/interaction is like an email in that a copy of every interaction is sent to every federated instance, like emails sent to recipients. This creates a lot of redundancy and traffic between instances, which has its pros and cons.
Yes.
Yes.
Idk, they’d be very niche.
Nah, you pretty much nailed it.
Lemmy, and a lot of the fediverse, functions very similarly to email. Gmail can send emails to Proton even though they’re hosted by two completely separate companies. A post/comment/vote/interaction is like an email in that a copy of every interaction is sent to every federated instance, like emails sent to recipients. This creates a lot of redundancy and traffic between instances, which has its pros and cons.