• Colonel Sanders@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Not to be the fly in the ointment, but you can’t really just add those up and expect that number to be accurate if we’re trying to look at unique users within the fediverse. If I had to hazard a guess, a not-so-insignificant chunk of those probably overlap (i.e. users who have made multiple accounts across several instances). I have made an account across lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, kbin and fedia just as backups in case one instance fails. I might be an extreme case having 4, but pretty sure it’s becoming increasingly common for people to have at least 2 accounts (1 on a different instance).

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      With this same logic in mind, I’d assume almost the entire population of lemmynsfw should be disregarded from this count, which is almost certainly majority comprised of people’s porn alts that they want to keep separate from their main accounts.

    • jdsquared@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Yeah I have two accounts. But that’s when lemme.world was kind of crashing because of that update, and I thought I was doing something wrong. So I went to a different instance.

      • DoctorTYVM@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        I made a bunch of accounts on a bunch of instances when I first started because I didn’t understand how they were connected. Even now, I’d suggest having one or two on the instances you like and decide which ones work best

    • marsokod@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      To be fair, I am sure many people also have multiple accounts on the same instance. I am not sure what is the proportion between people opening accounts for backup like you and people just wanting alt accounts.

    • Frost Wolf@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I don’t know if this is counted but it’s also perfectly reasonable to have accounts on defederated instances. So if this is counted that might inflate the numbers a bit.