When you set up a lemmy instance, it has no idea other instances exist. It's like throwing you into a web browser with no search engine. You don't immediately see every single website, you have someone tell you about a cool website you found, and then you type it into the address bar, and save it.

It's kind of the same thing with Lemmy instances and communities. Once a user types this syntax into the search prompt:

[!community@instance.com](/c/community@instance.com)

It will try and contact instance.com for that community. If it exists, the user can subscribe and the instances will now receive and send new posts to each other.

[–] Gnubyte@lemdit.com 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mastodon has this issue too, fwiw.

[–] Xylight@lemmy.xylight.dev 10 points 1 year ago

I wouldn't say it's an issue. Great way to make new instances not be flooded with 500000 submissions per second.

[–] Xylight@lemmy.xylight.dev 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is actually bad for the instance. It costs a lot more resources to send and fetch submissions from a bunch more instances.

[–] lea@mlem.lea.moe 12 points 1 year ago

That juicy /all feed though, worth it.

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Eh, even with a LOT of subscriptions lemmy really isn't that heavy.

It's the outgoing federation (I hear) that really starts taking more resources

[–] VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf 2 points 1 year ago

Lemmy ain't heavy..it's my brother!

[–] Erika2rsis@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 year ago

A real Stakhanovite of the fediverse!