I’ve seen a number of posts stating that they are worried that multiple instances will have overlapping magazines, like “Technology“. It’s true this will happen. But I don’t think it is a problem.
One thing I’ve learned from Mastodon, and I think it will apply to kbin as well, is that you don’t need to post for EVERYBODY on the internet. At some point, there’s a number — 1000 people, 10,000 people, or 100,000 people — where there are enough users where you can have an effective community and a nice conversation, without being so big that everything goes to sh*t.
In real life, we don’t expect to know everybody. We interact with people close to us. Maybe, this is fine in a federated community as well.
And, of course, there is still the chance that post will get really popular and percolate through the fediverse, for example, into the multiple “Technology” magazines.
In sum, I think the fediverse model will build multiple, interlinked, smaller but sustainable communities. If all you want is “reach”, it won’t be for you. But I think it will be good if you want community.
I def see the splintering as a positive. Personally, I dont feel I motivated to engage with a community once it starts to feel “too” big. There’s a certain size where I feel unmotivated to engage. I know whatever I say there will get lost in the noise and there will be less meaningful communication. If any of my interests on a single server start to get too big where I feel like I’m just adding to the noise, I can always easily hop over to another instance where I can engage in a more meaningful way. I would bet there’s a lot of other folks on here who will feel the same. While I’m sure it’s likely that one instance for each topic might become the biggest “main” one, I dont think the smaller ones will be any worse off for it.