The instance preference can be important if you look at the Local Communities timeline. Niche instances will usually have more communities relevant to that niche. However, with current user distribution most users are either on Lemmy.world or Lemmy.ml.
A Federated space where this more apparent is on Mastodon. I joined SFBA,social because it is local to me (San Francisco Bay Area, California, US). The Local Timeline is all users on the instance. As a good proportion of them are from the area I can learn about local events/projects/news.
The instance preference can be important if you look at the Local Communities timeline. Niche instances will usually have more communities relevant to that niche. However, with current user distribution most users are either on Lemmy.world or Lemmy.ml.
A Federated space where this more apparent is on Mastodon. I joined SFBA,social because it is local to me (San Francisco Bay Area, California, US). The Local Timeline is all users on the instance. As a good proportion of them are from the area I can learn about local events/projects/news.