Every person who signed up for my favorite instance is gold, everyone who signed up for the one I dislike is actually a troll and must be de federated.
FWIW, I left .ml after about a year (and around a month ago) because there were just enough threads shit flinging and just enough posts like below, and just enough people who would dismiss any argument based on seeing .ml that it annoyed the shit out of me.
Not for how anyone at .ml ever treated me. (And FTR I'm not a communist)
So I'd say how much you worry about it is up to you, but switching instances is also pretty easy.
there's always going to be this stigma against .ml users due to how the .ml instance was formed and how the general userbase behaves.
the good news is that you are always free to switch instances if you find out that you dislike the instance you are currently on. while your posts, comments, and "karma" won't transfer, you can transfer everything else such as the communities you follow, your settings, and your blocklist.
Don't worry much about your instance. .ml is fine, but Lemmygrad.ml in particular is a very strange place. Have a look if you want to read what non-religious people hostile to the United States/West think. Sometimes they make good points but they're such fundamentalist assholes about everything.
Most of us don’t judge users but we are internally vocal about our own social challenges.
.ml is a big instances and people coming from the old web find such attractive, it feels like “the official one” we are well aware.
The have been attempts to advertise avoiding those but were not exactly a well coordinated organization.
Regardless the ideology of .ml and others big instances pose a problem in centralized power. Lemmy works best as many tiny servers organically building a network of content and ideas.
All of Lemmy is accessible as long as your instance is federated (almost all) however some may defederate from those problematic big ones, limiting the posts you can see.
You wont lose much by changing instance right now. There is no karma or rewards associated with your account. You can also make multiple on different instances with the same user name so you have a backup if your main instance goes down.
the ideology of .ml and others big instances pose a problem in centralized power.
it's not centralized, .world is considerably bigger and way more conservative, like it even has a splinter /c/196 populated with everyone who thought neo pronouns and basic levels of respect were too hard
For the record i am also starting to feel like sopuli is getting a bit crowded. Don’t get me wrong everyone is welcome i just think we can benefit from more independent niches and corners.
I strongly prefer having niches and area with different cultures rather than single large instances too. I just don't think people shitflinging based on peoples instance and broad stereotypes about the instance culture is a helpful behavior for any community. Yet it's extremely common for these type of two minutes hate threads because they're just baiting a response.
If the majority of user and communities live on a the same instance, and that instance goes down or becomes to toxic to keep federated then fediverse loses a large chunk of its whole. While if it a tiny instances that dissapears only a few people and communities need to migrate.
General i also think its beneficial if the owners of an instance are the same people from the communities its hosts. The role of general use instances should be more like a backup mirror
One example is the lemmy.ml problem. You see the rest of the Tankie Triad is pretty widely defederated from, but lemmy.ml isn't despite doing much of the same things, just a bit more subtlety.
Because lemmy.ml is such a big instance and has a few of the biggest comms (By subscribers only, which means a bunch of dead accounts boosting the numbers, by MAUs a much different story unfolds) many instances admins are hesitant to defederate from them
Big instances carry too much power and influence and if you're a toxic instance like .ml, it can be used to basically bully other instances into remaining federated with you
You can always move to another instance. The instance I joined first is very lovely but they're a bit heavy on defederation, so half of the comments are unavailable. It's actually very nice, but fomo is too strong with me. When I feel depressed by humanity, I switch back to that one again and feel better, not seeing all the bullshit.