Is it done by majority vote or does one instance have more control than others cough cough lemmy world cough if so then this is not really federated is it and with each instance we now have basically upgraded mod power to admin power so one more question is each instance independently monetized?
So how are instances defederated? Is it done by majority vote or does one instance have more control than others cough cough lemmy world cough if so then this is not really federated is it and with each instance we now have basically upgraded mod power to admin power
This is quite a hard question to follow, but I will try to answer what I think you are saying. Each instance is it's own site. On my instance, the server connects to other instances and copies the posts and comments across to my instance.
Every instance has at least one admin, and they have control over who their own instance federates with. There is no central server and no central decision making. If lemmy.world wants to defederate from lemmyf.uk, they can. If beehaw wants to defederate from lemmy.world, they can.
A user from lemmy.world will not see posts or comments from lemmyf.uk. A user on beehaw will not see posts from lemmy.world. Or vice versa. However, if there is a post on lemmy.ml, a user on lemmyf.uk might comment on it. Users on lemmy.world will not see it, but users on other instances will see it. A lemmyf.uk user and a beehaw.org user might have a conversation on a post on lemmy.ml, all the while lemmy.world users will not see it.
Basically, every instance decides for itself (it's admins decide), and any content from defederated instances will not be copied to that instance. But they will be copied to other instances just fine.
so one more question is each instance independently monetized?
At the moment, virtually every lemmy instance is either funded through donations, or from the pocket of the person running it.
Others have answered quite well but here is some info I think they have missed.
You can see what instances are federated/federated here: https://lemmy.world/instances (for lemmy.world) change the front to your instance to see who they allow/block. (Federated at the top, de-federated at the bottom in a different section.
When your instance defederates another instance, it won't show communities from that instance. Users of the blocked instance can still see your instances content.
(I don't actually know what happens to comments from the blocked instance on posts in neutral communities)