Underrated benefit of lemmy is like minded people will tend to join the same instances and if I don't want to interact with those groups I can just filter the whole instance.

On the other hand, learning to deal with people you dislike is a useful skill. If everyone segregates themselves into opposing factions there will never be any progress.

Of course, I've personally blocked about 600 people...

Personally I kind of don't want everybody to be like-minded, because that becomes an echo chamber. What I'm after on Lemmy is people willing to explore subjects objectively, without beating the bushes for enemies or competing for upvotes.

Doesn't this lead to potential echo chambers though. If I go and block all content I don't like, how can I have ideas that challenge my beliefs?

The downside of that is the filter bubble or echo chamber effect. Question is whether Lemmy should be a fun experience for you or something to broaden your horizons a little

People talk about filter bubbles, but there's a nuance here: on Lemmy, you're not being served up whatever the platform owners think you should see from an opaque algorithm. You're going to, by default, see cesspool content. You have to choose to block it.

It is the opposite. People join an instance which does not agree with their point of view. They get banned. They move to a different instance.

Echo chamber galore.

o7 to the brave admins of Hexbear, Lemmy's tankie quarantine instance.

Underrated benefit of Lemmy is that it isn't infested with bots the way its larger counterpart is. Reddit has really turned to garbage.

Lower quantity of content here, but more authentic

Meanwhile I'm on a Dutch instance and look at all the bs...

I think a bit the opposite: I'm really worried about the trend to give people only information they care about. I think it's essential to be able to have information about everything. Of course there will always be stuff you don't care about but having it automatically filtered out is dangerous in my opinion. In GAFA-powered social networks, you are only given pieces of information about your own opinion, you never have something that make you question yourself about your opinion. The power of independent and open media like Lemmy is to not rely on such biasing algorithms.

I think it attracts a certain type of person to Lemmy in the first place; someone who would have probably used the original Reddit back in the day

There are some instances that lean in specific directions, but there are also several that are kind of just melting pots. For the most part I don't need to use blocks too frequently, but there are definitely some spaces/users that I find are too hostile that it gets in the way of their intended messaging. But then, that line is going to be different for everybody.

I just sort of picked a server at random when I singed up. Turned out to be a cool place, but I am sure that is true for most instances.

Any system model that eventually encourages echo chamberism should not be in use, even if the intent is to change the system before echo chambers occur, by then it will be too entrenched to just change

Other than the one we are all thinking of here, I can't say I really agree.

I haven't thought about how that works.

If other instance users post on a problematic instance by accident or because there's a useful community, I wouldn't want those hidden.

Then again if it, preferably, only hides the users of the problematic instance, that doesn't really solve the core issue of bad actors being enabled in the fediverse 🤔