I joined two days ago, a very small instance simply because I liked the name. And I read recommendations that the choice would not matter, that you can switch later anyways and whatnot.

Turns out, bad choice. Many communities are invisible to me unless I perform some exclamation mark shenanigans which I still don't understand (or another person from my instance does, but since we are so few, that doesn't happen so often).

Links to other instances are broken. For example, when yesterday's megathread was closed due to 500 comments, the mod left a link there to this thread here, I suppose. Because since I'm not from beehaw, the link does not work for me.

So it really comes with convenience and benefits to be part of a big instance, as long as that instance can handle the load. It should not make a difference, but it does. I wish the communication was clearer about that upfront. I'm a nerd and can handle it (for a while), but surely some people would leave again, when experience does not live up to advertisement.

For the best experience, join the instance with the most content you're interested in. Federation is nice in theory, but we're not fully there yet.