@sbjohnsrpi Thank you Samuel for reading the article and for the comments. Glad you liked it.

I think that more localized instances serve a purpose, build community, help preserve and practice languages even. I just came back home and have been going thru the various open tabs I keep with the different instances, one of the most active, considering the number of users, is a localized instance, in Brazil, where posting happens in Portuguese, not a very common language in the Fediverse so far.

Given that it is possible to start an instance either individually or with a small organization, coop or similar guiding it, it's not had to see these happening.

On chosing the right instance, we got to hope that people get lucky on which they land on when first arriving here - mine was Qoto, picked from the joinmastodon.org, based on the description and theme. A month later or so I joined mastodon.social and had the impression it was a bit overwhelming, for me, let alone a new user.

If I had first landed there, likely I would not have stuck around for more than a couple of days - and not knowing there are alternatives, migth just written off the whole Fediverse experience.