Switching accounts over is a big issue for sure, but even bigger is when entire communities are lost. Those are much harder to switch over, both due to scale and moderation concerns.

I don’t disagree with the sentiments behind these statements, but you’re basically asking a fish to leave their large school to join a smaller school because it will benefit the species as a whole if the species is divided into multiple schools rather than one giant school. While it might be true that the species is safer that way, it’s much more dangerous for the individual fish to be in a smaller school than to stay in the large school.

In other words, it’s safer for the fediverse for users to diversify, but is safer for the individual to join a “too large to fail” instance. If a user’s instance goes belly up and they lose their account and everything associated with it, it’s functionally similar to the entirety of Lemmy going down as far as that individual user is concerned, because unless you’re a serial lurker (in which case it doesn’t even matter what instance you’re on if you’re not contributing) who wants to invest years in a social media site just to lose your account? Most folks are going to leave rather than start all over. And most folks are going to make the decision that is in their best interests over those of some website. I know every time I see another instance get shut down or defederated, I’m relieved I decided to sign up via .world, even if it’s sluggish at times.

“Joining the fediverse isn’t hard bro, your instance doesn’t matter, just pick one.”

“Stop using Lemmy.world, we need to redistribute to smaller instances.”

The number of times I’ve heard these fucking lines when people discuss why Lemmy/the Fediverse isn’t growing like corp-owned alternatives…

For urban environments I 100% agree, but e-bikes and public transport can’t help farmers* get their produce to market. I don’t know much about this truck, but if it can fill a similar niche as the Japanese kei truck, I think it’s great to provide people who actually need a pickup with an alternative to the F-150+ behemoths currently available stateside.

*Yes there are some urban farms that totally could operate via ebike/other form of micro mobility, however most farms, even small ones, are located >10 miles outside urban centers, usually in areas only accessible by roads and highways that are currently very dangerous for non-motorized transportation modes. Fixing this problem would take decades and hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars even if the government were fully on board with the transportation network and/or land use changes necessary to allow for a true car-free society (which of course they aren’t). I’m not such an idealist as to poo-poo a significant short-term improvement to the “oversized working vehicle” problem.