This site is currently struggling to handle the amount of new users. I have already upgraded the server, but it will go down regardless if half of Reddit tries to join.
However Lemmy is federated software, meaning you can interact seamlessly with communities on other instances like beehaw.org or lemmy.one. The documentation explains in more detail how this works. Use the instance list to find one where you can register. Then use the Community Browser to find interesting communities. Paste the community url into the search field to follow it.
You can help other Reddit refugees by inviting them to the same Lemmy instance where you joined. This way we can spread the load across many different servers. And users with similar interests will end up together on the same instances. Others on the same instance can also automatically see posts from all the communities that you follow.
Edit: If you moderate a large subreddit, do not link your users directly to lemmy.ml in your announcements. That way the server will only go down sooner.
I sent my registration yesterday, because I signed in another instance, one from my country, but I couldn't see all the post and no comments from lemmy.ml even thought is supposedly linked, so thank you for approving my account.
Even if I'm a tech savvy person I found the whole experience of joining lemmy pretty bad, I like the concept of federation, but I think it's too confusing to normal people, it really needs to be more seamless if you want to grow, how? idk, I was thinking some sort of replication, when you sign up, you are registered to the main instance (this) and given the choice to select other instances, automatically selecting let's say another 3 based on your location, then your account is synced in all the registered and linked instances, when you login if an instance is experiencing overload then it switches to another one. I don't know if this is realistic or out of the scope of Lemmy, or maybe against the philosophy of it. I'm just rambling.
I'm just glad that there is an open alternative for anonymous social interaction in this day of walled internet services such as discord, twitter, facebook etc. and I wish you all the success.
I found it rather easy to get signed up, just had to wait for the admin to actually approve the application. Otherwise it was pretty easy.
However, I do see a HUGE benefit to "load balancing" as you are mentioning. Where you sign up for a master server and then replicated to the others that are more applicable. I'm surprised this isn't already a process as this is very common in gaming and proxied sites.
Yeah the registration itself was easy like any other site, I was talking more about grasping and understanding the concept of instances and how they interact.
And as someone said in another comment, the see all posts options should be the default in your home and community search or you feel like in a dessert island when you are new to all of this.
Both Mastodon and Lemmy have this problem. Make the default where the most new content is, which is going to be the federated tab and all tabs respectively.