(Reminder: if you have shared the original version in a public post with an old version up, replacing it with this one might be more helpful.)
I want to preface, if you see a mistake in the image or have something helpful to add, go right ahead! I still have the layered files for this, so edits can be made very quickly. I chose to handwrite the text to avoid font copyright infringement.
Feel free to share this poster as you wish, especially on Reddit. All I ask is that you respect the license and don’t remove my socials at the bottom. If anyone’s addition is included, I’ll credit them, and if this gets added onto (or translated) by someone else later, they can add their info as well.
I hope someone can find it useful with the subreddit blackouts right around the corner.
I want to thank the Beehaw admins so much for their amazing work!
(Poster edited; I spotted a duplicated word, mrmanager@lemmy.today noted the lack of whitespace; current version is slightly larger and has been spaced out. You can still request the 800x2000 size, but know it is a little squished.)
(Edit 2: Removed defederation part as it’s not really required. The email analogy blackcoffee@beehaw.org suggested has been added, thanks!)
(Edit 3: Here’s another version making the interconnectivity a bit clearer and mentioning some cool-looking reader apps that have been suggested! Also made the image slightly longer for ease of viewing. I might do some small cosmetic changes tomorrow)
(Edit 4 is here with the date updated towards the bottom. This version contains a reminder to verify your email, lets people know why mlem isn’t showing up on App Store searches, and added fedia.io to Kbin instances. Some colors have been changed slightly to be more mobile friendly, as this is written and edited from a phone tablet. If you have a hard time reading this because of the changes, please let me know. Thank you all for the help and tips!)
This is kind of what I was thinking; it does matter which instance you joint in the sense that different servers have different goals, rules, and moderation, and saying it doesn’t matter isn’t quite right. It is true that you’ll see a lot of the same things across instances, though, and I’ll revise to add that in the next few hours.
I'd suggest adding something like "even though you can access the content on other instances, the user experience will differ depending on which instance you sign up for".
A good analogy would be using Facebook vs Twitter but being able to follow and post content cross platform from either of them.
One will not look and feel like the other, but they will let you read and reply to content from the other one.
For good measure add in reddit, hacker news, and discord in there too to help people visualize.
It's also important to give people a few clear instance examples to check out, but you already did enough of that I think.