Content? Politics? Community? A cool integration you're looking for? Maybe even a cool domain name? I'm not looking for tips as an instance owner, lol; I'm just curious.

Edit: I've gotten a lot of push factors, what about pull factors?

It shutting down. Or me stop being lazy and finally run up my own instance.

I don't use Lemmy as part of my personality so I don't care who the Admins are or what the perception of a user is based on a domain.

Me getting too busy to maintain my own server 😅

I only really want an instance to be stable, uncontroversial, and to have a low block/blocked by count (I can filter out for myself what I want and don’t want to see). I’d switch instances if those preferences were not being met to a degree that noticeably impacted my experience using it.

Errors

I'd leave if I felt some controversy for whatever reason but I currently use multiple instances that I switch between anyway.

So far I have hopped because the instance shut down (kbin) and for a better user experience from lemmy to piefed.

If I had accidentally joined a tankie instance I would probably hop off once I found out.

Censorship and defederation. It's a fuzzy, subjective line. I want instances to allow anything non-hate and non-abusive. I will filter anything I don't personally like.

Content is my primary reason for switching from Lemmy.world to Piefed.social. I just wanted access to the pirating comms and I had to switch for that.

I assume admin/moderation issues are a given, so uptime/reliability. I don't have issue with my instance, but I see a lot of image posts on another instance that I want to view and they regularly don't load until I try again much later (even opening the URL of the original instance in a browser doesn't load, so I don't think it's a federation issue/issue with my instance). I don't want to name the other instance as I don't like to bad mouth what are almost certainly volunteers, but I do wonder why people haven't abandoned posting images to it due to reliability. Maybe the posters aren't aware.

I actually considered switching to your new instance! Just because the vibes are really nice. However, I'm kind of super well established here already

Only thing so far has been shutdowns and slowdowns. Originally joined Lemmy.World. It expanded super fast and started being slowed down, so I moved to Yiffit. Yiffit shutdown, so I moved to Pawb.Social.

Ooof, a lot of things.

• Github-like uptimes (95% or lower, basically) (yes, I know I'm on SDF's lemmy, thanks)
• Github-like moderation ("we are right-wing 'neutral'" and such asses, no Luigi, no guillotines for CEOs, etc)
• Github-like servicing (severely blocking what is accessible to guests or to API use, for example)
• Severe Big Tech dependency / cock-sucking (annoying Cloudflare captcha for example)
• There being flat out better options elsewhere

I have had accounts on multiple different instances since I started exploring activitypub based social media. Instances can be so different, I would never stick with just one. I guess I can answer what would make me leave one though. First thought, mod protected hate speech under the guise of free speech.

Oh no way! I totally understand that :) That's still nice to hear

Edit: I just saw how old your account was. I'm surprised you even considered it! I was hesitant on making my own instance because I had a pretty dang old account on feddit.org and bigger number better, lol

Oof, hate that. The freedom of speech does NOT include the freedom to oppress

Twin

Shitty admins or unreliability would definitely drive me away.

Being well run and powered by renewables would be positives for me.

Probably nothing, lol. I'm already on one of the most blocked and disliked instances and still here after almost 6 years.

Personally it just feels nice to be on a medium to small instance. I joined up here before piefed really blew up, so it was a lot smaller then lol

Tankieslop.

Honestly, any extremist slop

I agree. That's part of why I made my own. I was originally a part of feddit.de and moved to feddit.org when they shut down. I was already hesitant because I could tell they were growing, but I didn't expect them to as much as they did, lol

Same thing. 😂

Wow, 6 years? You've even got me beat. Wear that as a badge of honor! Like I said in another comment, bigger number better, lol

Features:
For me, the features of an instance was a major factor. This is the main reason why I switched from a Lemmy instance to a PieFed instance.

Polls, combined communities into feeds, comments from all crossposts in one post, multi images in posts, better integration with Mastodon users, scheduled posts, tags, flair, blurring of spoilers, etc. All good reasons to use PieFed instead of Lemmy.

As far as hopping between instances of the same software:

Content:
I usually prefer instances that give the end user more control over the content they want to see. That means minimizing the number of instances blocked (as much as reasonable) and more federation. Piefed.Zip would likely be the next instance I'll hop to.

Privacy:
.World instances actively block VPN users. So that's one reason I would avoid them for future hops.

Politics:
In general, only if the admins block/ban users based mostly on their political beliefs. I try to avoid factoring in whether admins have political beliefs that match my own. There will always be things that people disagree on, and everyone has their own lines that they have drawn on how far they're willing to support others based on their own beliefs.

What matters to me is that an admin can treat others fairly, even if they disagree on politics.

Domain Name:
Usually not a factor unless it's something absurd.

So historically I chose kbin over lemmy because I liked the features better and once I was on I like how passionate and productive earnest was with it. Once he left it kinda left mbin so I went to an instance that was philosophically don't block anything or defederate at the instance level unless necessary (legal) but mbin compared to kbin was kinda maintenance mode. piefed came up with the same kinda energy as kbin and that is what got me to move to that and .social was kinda the main instance. I have toyed with moving to an instance that is more default allow everything but its kinda tough mainly because what is limited is stuff I would block as a user anyway more than likely. So the only reason to really go is strictly philosophical. I want it to be me who does it or at least have everything easily reversible at the user level. Then also I think an anime instance has communities that are private so you can only get them if you are on it. Not sure if other instances have things like that. nsfw is kinda tempting as I really would prefer more in my all thread. Nice to see boobies here or there and if anything is to gross just block the communities. I don't scroll at work though.

The ability to, when hopping, actually carry over history from the previous account.

I stick to Mbin when possible. Mastodon or crust.piefed.social for generating RSS bots. Mastodon also if I want to post heavier files in size. NeoDB if I want to post reviews. Lemmy if I want to post stuff for nicher instances and I happen to have an alt on, or if I want to crosspost posts no longer available externally but available locally.

Mbin I prefer because it integrates decently enough thread posts and microblogs while, unlike alternatived, not being visually bloated or as slow to interact.

And when it lacks some feature, it's one of the better and more responsive ones to either emulate or redirect to an instance that supports the given feature, either by Ublock Origin filters, Violentmonkey scripts, etc.

Also integrating microblog features to threads, like following the poster and boosting posts and comments, is great imo. And I can post microblogs to communities without @ the community, which makes the posts cleaner. And can post to Bluesky too through a bridging service for microblogging.

Also forgot to mention another instance (or rather software), Misskey. That one I like for following people through RSS since it allows the technology for external accounts. But then I set a script for redirecting the Misskey posts to Mbin or Mastodon's (hardcoded) search links. Mastodon's also good for RSS, specifically hashtags' in its case, but needs an ever-growing list of matched links in the redirect script.

I'm on 3 just for fun. 1 for modding, 1 for all my scrolling, and one for non political scrolling (I block things they aren't blocked instance wide).

It getting replaced by piefed

lemmy.ee made people too scattered, i like that it was a alternative .world instance without thier astroturfing.

when one shuts down.

I hopped around a bit before landing on .zip, and they definitely strike the right balance. I just want admins to defederate spam. Anything beyond that is curation, which is solely my job.

NOT NOW MOM IM NON POLITICAL SCROLLING

Cool domain name

r1b.it ;)

I left .world as I felt the communities there were too toxic.

Unreasonable moderation.

That is to say, I have no problem with reasonable moderation or following well-established rules, but if there comes a point where it seems that the admins and mods are abusing their power, then I would probably lose trust in their leadership of that instance.

1 of them will cause me to change instance:

1: Rude People

2: lemmy.world defederates my instance

3: bad moderation or mods