I think most of it has to do with that lemmy.world has better hardware than other instances. The admin Rudd has a lot of experience running federated services as well. So it may be his first rodeo lemmy-wise but not hosting a federated service with a large user-base.

So when a lot of smaller instances started getting overwhelmed and stopping signups, lemmy.world was going strong without the performance issues that other instances might see.

That along with the fact that NSFW content is allowed makes lemmy.world a good alternative for Reddit refugees looking for something stable with a similar set of rules as well.

I myself joined lemmy.ml at first, then beehaw.org when lemmy.ml asked everyone to spread out, and finally found home on lemmy.world because I didn’t really like how downvotes are disabled on beehaw. Not to mention the defederation that beehaw has done recently. Although I can understand and appreciate why they’ve done that.

This made me think about how much I miss the video store!

There was something really special about going out as a family and browsing all the cover art. Copies of Star Wars were always rented out at ours. Memories of renting a Godzilla movie you’d never seen, begging your dad for candy and popcorn on the way to the checkout counter. Good times. I miss them. 🥲