I appreciate the explanation, and I understand exactly what you’re saying. My confusion though is that it doesn’t match what I’m seeing. I’m using the Voyager web app if that makes a difference.
An example: I can see posts and comments at [email protected] from lemmy.world. So I don’t see a wasteland. I just see a smaller number of and different posts, compared to looking at the same sub from beehaw.org. It’s the same place, looking at the sidebar. Just that different content appears to be available depending on the home location gaming viewed from.
Could it be that what I’m seeing from lemmy.world are just the crossposts (if such a thing exists here)? And perhaps comments from non-beehaw.org users? That’s why it’s not total empty, just reduced?
Also: when an instance defederates, is that from everywhere or just selected instances? For example, what you’re saying is that beehaw is blocking lemmy.world but not other smaller instances. And so I should sign up at a smaller non-blocked instance which will then see everything …?