My guess is there is an admin that knows where each contributor is from. And can approve or decline check in requests.

Gotcha. That sounds like a good solution.

I’ve never moved, but I assume you just create a new account and start over. Or is there more you can do?

The difference is the way it is run. You got it. And if one day Midwest.social starts doing things you hate and treating it’s users like crap, then come on over to lemmy.world or lemmy.ca, or one if the other thousands instances.

People hosting the database are not the owners of the platform unlike Reddit. They get to tell us how we can use it just because they host the database.

The only thing Lemmy doesn’t have that Reddit does have is the immense history of quality content. This will only get better in time.