Sorry if I say something wrong, I’m not that experienced in this area.
So, when you connect to google.com, you’re not connecting to one IP regardless of location. Your request is routed to the closest google server’s ip address (using anycast? Yes, I just googled this lol).
I’m guessing the Lemmy servers don’t do this yet? So, would it be best to sign up to a server near you, lag wise? Especially with the continuing and ever escalating avalanche of Reddit refugees to reach a zenith on June 12-14?
I’m making this post because I was thinking of making a small website or app thing showing new users a random instance (to reduce load on lemmy.ml or any one individual server). And then that becomes the default “go here to join Lemmy” link for new users. But then I realised I could get the IP (or manually input) location of the user and randomly choose an instance out of the pool of instances nearby.
Anyways, I’m probably not gonna do this myself because lazy (I know) but I think it’d be a good idea.
I’d assume that using an instance hosted closer to you is probably better than using an instance hosted on the other side of the world, but I think the main priority right now would be trying to not overload any particular server. Lemmy is likely to see a steady influx of users as reddit’s API fiasco continues, which could threaten some servers if people overload them.