Same here! My background is in systems architecture, so I love this stuff.
Though I run mine on my own “private cloud”. Even though it sounds like an amateur operation I’ve got the proper safety nets in place (backups, redundant power, firewalls, etc). A lot of instances are public cloud which is cool and I have nothing against that, I just wanted to do something a little different.
I have no idea how to get people to join but I hope to have some friends in here some day :D
OP is such a community MVP fr
Also I require cat pics too plzzzzzz
Can’t argue with you there :P but I guess what I mean is from a service standpoint, Gmail is mail, ISPs provide internet.
For me personally, Google is not my friend and I run my own mail server on my own domain and have for years. It’s quite involved though if you want good deliverability.
I think Proton is probably the happiest medium between privacy-respecting and all-out DIY mail server. Though I’m sure there are many others too :)
Well it’s just an example of course 😂 but to be fair, mail is the core business of Gmail.
Mail is a value-add for ISPs. You could argue any mail provider could up and change things and the only true way to get around that is hosting your own mail server, but I was trying to be semi-realistic.
Whilst I agree and sympathise with people on how difficult it is to change your primary email address (been there), the outcome will be better for them. They are no longer wedded to an ISP purely because all their mail goes there.
To liken it to something more tangible; when you move house, you need to change your mailing address. For renters, that can be often and is just as painful. Or when your phone number changes and you have to update your contacts. The difference here is who is pulling the trigger; the end user vs the provider.
Gmail is a great option, as is Proton Mail for the security conscious and tech savvy.
This isn’t to excuse the ISPs; it’s a shitty move on their part and the people using these mail accounts will likely be older technically challenged folks, but it is a logical one from a technical perspective. They may have also inadvertently taken the only thing away that’s creating stickiness between them and their customer and driven them into the arms of another ISP.
I’m the admin of krabb.org, honestly I’m loving it. There is a learning curve, particularly for non-technical folks, but that will get easier as time goes on.
As an admin, it is far easier to “jump start” an empty Lemmy instance with content from other instances than it is to do with Mastodon and Pixelfed.
Where we need to improve is the mobile apps, documentation and providing ways to make it easier for small instances to get new users. These are all very much in the spotlight and improving every day (especially the apps), so I’m confident we can get there
Tldr: it good, do like
Nothing manual required, you can federate with any other instance as long as you’re not on their ban list.
You basically use your instance’s search to search for a community on the remote instance, then your instance requests the top (5?) posts from the community on the remote instance. Once a user subscribes, all new posts going forward will be sent to your server via the federation.
At least I think that’s how it works, haha.