Unless we’re talking about German ICE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercity_Express

For new users the local feed is the recommendation algorithm. If you are on a instance that caters to your interests you will discover stuff that interests you there automatically. If you’re not, then you might conclude, that Lemmy has nothing for you and bounce off the platform entirely. This is especially true if you are looking for non-English content.

The paradoxical situation with federation and instances is that those least likely to understand it are among the more likely to profit from it if they did.

No it’s not. Matrix isn’t part of the Fediverse. It doesn’t use ActivityPub and there is no interop with any other Fediverse service.

That doesn’t make Matrix bad, it just makes it it’s own thing.

6. Your server is your algorithm. That’s what the local feed is for. If you pick a server that caters to your interest, then the local feed becomes a potent discovery tool. That’s even more true for non-English communities because English language content is probably going to drown out everything else on the all/global feed