I think we need default instances that new users are put in to stream line the sign up process. Instances with little to no defederation so people can window shop for a instance that reflects their values. Or even just browse.
Looking through a intimidating list of instances all with their own special rules is not for everyone.
I agree, though you’ll probably get a lot of pushback on that from Fediverse enthusiasts since it goes against the idea of the decentralised concept and we should “distribute the users more evenly among instances”. At least that was the way discussion went on this topic back in 2023.
For the moment I feel like lemm.ee is a fairly solid “default” to recommend, though. Few defederations and great admins, very stable amd large enough to have a populated /all but not the massive behemoth that is .world (which I do agree has gotten too large).
