I was thinking about the multiple accounts thing. Maybe the concept of an "instance" needs to be separate from the concept of an account? Like, it doesn't matter what service you choose for your email account; you can email anyone from Gmail, and anyone can send email to you. The only real difference is that your email address end in "@gmail.com" instead of "@comcast.net".

On Lemmy, though, the place you make your account matters a whole lot. It determines what content you're allowed to see, and who you're allowed to interact with. If the instance you're on gets federated, you need to migrate to a different account on a different instance. That never happens with email!

A lot of users have been managing this by creating their own instance, with the sole purpose of hosting their account and nothing else. Maybe that's what we need: a set of "instances" that only host accounts, and a set of "instances" that only host communities. You could then use that account to subscribe to communities from any instance. That way, Beehaw could block content from instances they don't like, without cutting off all of the users who happened to choose the wrong place to sign up.

Actually, under that system, there wouldn't be a need for instances to federate content with each other at all. Users could just subscribe to communities with their account, and then the users would be the ones in charge of what they see, instead of their instance choosing for them.