Thinking about this lately, especially in the context of the UD elections getting discussed a lot all over Lemmy.
If you look at the top 20 instances https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy
- Lemmy.world and feddit.nl are Dutch
- Lemm.ee is Estonian
- Feddit.org, discuss.tchncs.de are German
- SJW and lemmy.ca are Canadian
- Lemmy.blahaj.zone, aussie.zone and Reddthat are Australian
- sopuli.xyz is Finnish
- slrpnk.net is Portuguese
- lemmy.dbzer0, infosec.pub, mander.xyz, programming.dev, lemmy.sdf.org are thematic
- Beehaw is USA-based, but defederated from LW and SJW and still on 0.18.3, so not sure they’re even that interested in Lemmy anymore
Out of the top 20, there is Midwest.social and Lemmy.today but they are quite small (326 and 201 monthly active users).
On the other hand, a lot of other countries have their own instances
With the USA population and the Internet presence of the USA citizens, you would expect at least one large generalist instance based in the USA, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.
Any ideas what the reasons might be? Is this just a coincidence?
Edit: for Lemmy.world:
The website and the agreement will be governed by and construed per the laws of the following countries and/or states:
- The Netherlands
- Republic of Finland
- Federal Republic of Germany
Hehehe, yes ofc.:-)
But I meant that how much is temporary vs. a long-standing issue, and ofc much of that overlaps heavily with more general interest - e.g. “List of book and/or film titles dealing with resistance movements–organization, strategy, tactics, etc?” is most definitely not something dealing solely with USA politics.
But also I know that you tend to have your idea on the ball regarding such matters, so even more than the above thought my reply was also my way of saying that I’ll take your word for it bc surely you know better than me:-).