There are many lemmy instances in the world, but currently most people are using lemmy.world. This is why everything has gotten so slow.
You don’t have to delete your lemmy.world account, but check out https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/map it’s a geo-based map of lemmy instances – explore stuff nearest you, pick one, sign up, search , subscribe and begin interacting with your favorite communities. It’s easy, free and it will be faster. Try it!
Wouldn’t this put me at risk of that smaller instance defederizing and removing everything I contribute while logged in to that instance?
This is whats kind of not clear to me. While its clear what the benefit is for lemmy.world or some instance you move from, its less clear what the benefit for the individual moving is such as myself. I have more risk, its a hassle, the smaller server might itself get overloaded or break. Sometimes it feels ‘safer in numbers’. Unsure. Feels like I would be best off if everyone else moved and took on the risk while I stayed and reaped the benefits of them reducing the load rather than me doing it.