@lurkeymclerkface@Xathonn Federation means that servers are independent, but they work together. It's like with emails: your provider (ex: Gmail) can still communicate with other servers (ex: Outlook or Yahoo or iCloud, etc)
Anyone can start a new Kbin or Lemmy or Mastodon server if they don't like the existing ones, and people are still able to talk with each others on other servers.