Here are the key factors I see behind Lemmy.world’s success:
Lemmy.ml was buckling under load, and at least one of the admins (and Lemmy developer) is an unapologetic communist & China sympathizer.
Beehaw.orgis a classic powermod situation where the admins want to micromanage every community. It also was struggling under load.
Lemmy.world was scaled quickly to handle the load, hasn’t been controversial in their policies, and for the most part just works.
As has been pointed out in other comments, the power of the fediverse is that if one instance becomes “evil”, users and communities can and will abandon it for another instance.
Here are the key factors I see behind Lemmy.world’s success:
As has been pointed out in other comments, the power of the fediverse is that if one instance becomes “evil”, users and communities can and will abandon it for another instance.