Note that a lot of free VPNs are easily identifiable and blacklisted by a lot of websites. Hell, even some paid ones have blacklisted IPs sometimes.
Browser fingerprinting is a thing (identifying someone by their browser's configuration and fonts, amongst other things), but I don't see them using that for bans honestly.
You're right, a few additions / changes to the Join Lemmy page would indeed go a long way.
Regarding account migration, I'm fairly certain it'll be implemented in the future if the project lives on long enough.
For what it's worth, having a few "bigger" instances means less confusion for users who don't completely understand federation yet but still want to make the switch. I wouldn't call it a bad thing, they can always turn to another smaller instance later on.
I'm not quite sure what you mean 😅
If you mean "joining the sub" like you would on Reddit, click on the community's link in my comment, then click on "subscribe" in the sidebar, on the top right :)
Bit of a self promo but since this thread is getting traction and people coming here might be looking for subreddits alternatives...
If you're bi or like bisexual memes, it'd be great if you joined us over at !bi_irl@lemmy.ml :)
Apologies for the self promo, just trying to get it started. Feel free to delete if this isn't allowed :)
A ban for first offense seems excessive, but to be fair, this whole situation must be quite stressful for them and being asked by hundreds of users for support of X or Y alternative seems like it would quickly become annoying.
I don't think so. Integrating with existing AI services equals direct privacy concerns to me.
A solution would be a self-hosted model, but then that could cost a lot in machine resources for instance owners, especially bigger instances.
Even then I'm having a hard time thinking of a useful usecase for an LLM integration on Lemmy (or even social media in general).