Feel free. Different accounts allow different feeds

Ah - I get a chance to preach.

I think it makes a lot of sense, and I’ve been trying to convince people of that since I’ve been here. It costs nothing and provides benefits, and what more could anyone want?

When I first came to Lemmy, I couldn’t figure out any reason to pick one specific instance, and I finally decided that the only way to know if it mattered was to create multiple accounts and compare them. So I did.

I sort of intended to eventually settle on one, but as it turned out, I never really did, and in fact have added a number of accounts since.

The first and most notable thing I discovered is that every instance is different. Unsurprisingly, specialty instances like ani.social and literature.cafe are different from the general instances, but even the general instances differ from each other just depending on which other instances they’re federated with and which communities they carry.

I default to All on most instances, and All on lemm.ee, for instance, is significantly different from All on Sopuli, or from All on dbzer0, or from All on Beehaw, and so on. So I can effectively tailor my experience simply by using different accounts.

I generally have about three general accounts that I cycle between, with another few specialty ones - either specialized by topic, like ani.social, or specialized by bias, like .ml. I find that’s enough so that pretty much no matter what I’m in the mood for, I have an account that fits.

Additionally, from a more simple practical perspective, instances change over time, and are sometimes shut down entirely. That’s never directly affected my experience, since I always have other accounts. So for instance, when .world started to decline, I just stopped using it, and when lemmy.ninja shut down (RIP), I just spent more time on other instances. And as new instances pop up, or just come to my attention, I just make an account, then take them for a test drive and see what I think. I’ve discovered a number of good instances that way.

So… yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense and it’s pretty much effortless and entirely free, so there’s no reason not to do it.

Instances might come down, or you might be banned from lemmy.ml because you said communism is bad…

I have multiple accounts just for if one instance goes down. It’s already helped because my primary instance, Yiffit, closed entirely. I originally joined Lemmy.World and moved to Yiffit because, at the time, World was constantly going down due to the massive influx of users clogging the works.

Well you might want a separate account for NSFW for example

It’s always a good idea to have more than one account in different servers in case one of them goes down, you get banned, etc. It’s also a good idea to be in servers running different software. A software may stop being developed altogether (that’s not Lemmy case, but has been known to happen) and been on servers running old software can be a security risk.

It would be great if nomadic identity were a possibility in ActivityPub, that will make things much easier, both in terms of posting and moving instances.

When I first got involved in this, I had a kbin and a lemmy account. I ended up focusing on the kbin, but it was useful to have the lemmy to see how things moderated. Kbin is dead now, but I still will occasionally use the lemmy to see how things look. I find it valuable. As an mbin person now, I think I should have some other instances in the mix as well. It’s a federation, and for me, I would like things to be appropriate for all of us. It’s kind of fun! Even if I am not a big user of other instances/federations?

Back in the day I had like five Reddit accounts. I still log into one of them sometimes (no it’s not my main one, that one turned into obscene invitations for u/spez to bugger himself with a hot poker, I’m not exaggerating).

In case your home instance goes down

If you want to look at things from a different angle, you could also consider signing up for Mbin (fedia.io, kbin.earth) or PieFed (piefed.social, feddit.online).

I guess it might make sense for some people, not for others. It does allow you to see things from a little bit of a different angle, especially in the all feed.

I have 2 accounts because I’ve been here long enough that when I joined servers were a bit unstable. It’s up to you honestly, I’m usually a 1 account person but I’ve met people who have like 10 accounts

the only reason would be to prevent impersonation

It helps to keep a backup account on another instance, in case there is an issue with your main server. You can export your settings and subscriptions from your main account and import to another Lemmy instance.

Moderating across instances hasn’t worked well but will be fixed in next release.

I think it’s a waste of time. It doesn’t really add anything. If you don’t want to lose your subscription in the unlikely event that your server/instance goes down forever, just use the export feature to make occasional backups. You can always create a new account after something happened. No need to invest that time otherwise.

You’re free to use sockpuppets though. Or if you’re moderating stuff or participate in instances/communities who don’t federate.