I’m a systems librarian in an academic library. I moved over the Lemmy after Rexxit 2023. I’ve had an account on sdf.org since 2009 (under a different username), and so I chose this instance out of a sense of nostalgia. I do all sorts of fiber arts (knitting, cross stitch, sewing) and love dogs.
Yeah, longevity and name recognition are why I went with sdf.org. They’ve been running many-user services for decades, even if the Lemmy service is pretty new.
ETA: they’ve been around since BBSes. I’m on a wicked nerdy old-school geek instance, and I love my local communities.