Hello people new to Mastodon! 👋
Have you heard people mention "instances" but you're not sure what they are?
Your "Instance" is the site you signed up on. That's all, it's as simple as that!
You only need to sign up on one instance, because the instances are connected to each other.
It's like telephones: you only need one phone to call anyone, even if they are on another provider or in another country.
Mastodon is like phones, but for social networks: lots of sites talking to each other.
@feditips Sure thing, but you went on to compare to telephones. That'd just confuse me to be honest. :)
@trinsec
Yup, and people call them "communities" too.
I'm going with instance as it seems to be the most widely used term on Masto/Fedi right now, but the same thing applies to all three terms.