Would using Tailscale be similar to a VPN where I’d have to establish a VPN connection and have all my traffic directed to Tailscale?

Good point. But what makes it a bit more complicated is the fact that from the get go, lemmy is promoting fragmentation. When I have to choose an initial server to login into, I’m bound by their restrictions. I’m finding that I’m not able to find duplicate groups from other servers (search doesn’t show it up) that I know exists and has more users that I’d like to take part of. Would be nice to have a way to streamline that somehow, but the idea of federation shows a lot of promise.

It’s shaping up to be a very cool platform and I hope with time it gets bigger than Reddit. I find the UX to be a bit clunky and not visually appealing at the moment and also the way communities work are a little confusing. Because of federation, you can have duplicate community groups and that can make content a bit segregated.