There are some misconceptions here. Re: echo chambers, it's not like that. Your home instance/server is just 'pick where you want your account registered'. In the same way that you can have a GMail account, but still email everyone else, whether they're using Outlook, iCloud or whatever. It's to stop one entity controlling the platform, there's always someone else (or you!) who can be running an instance and letting people in without there being one overarching authoritarian controlling who can say what *cough* Elon *cough*.
It doesn't matter which instance you register with, really. That said, obviously if you join, say, a tech one you might find new interesting people to follow - but you can still follow anyone from anywhere anyway and see them in your feed. The site itself has a news feed made up of your followed accounts, then 'Local' and 'Federated'. Think of it like 'My friends/interests', 'My subreddits (or subforums)' and 'All'. It's more like the equivalent of signing in to social media, forums, web apps and such with your AppleID or Google account - you went to one place to get an ID but you can use it everywhere and ultimately it's all one Internet. Same thing on Mastodon.
It doesn't matter which instance you register with, really. That said, obviously if you join, say, a tech one you might find new interesting people to follow - but you can still follow anyone from anywhere anyway and see them in your feed. The site itself has a news feed made up of your followed accounts, then 'Local' and 'Federated'. Think of it like 'My friends/interests', 'My subreddits (or subforums)' and 'All'. It's more like the equivalent of signing in to social media, forums, web apps and such with your AppleID or Google account - you went to one place to get an ID but you can use it everywhere and ultimately it's all one Internet. Same thing on Mastodon.
