I may be remembering it wrong, but I think world was one of the few accepting people without a referral during the reddit migration. That's why I use .world. I also don't really understand federation besides it means I can see other instances, but I only barely know what that means. There were a lot of "what is the fediverse" posts when I first joined, and they were helpful, but maybe too simplified?
I also remember thinking .world and .ml were the defaults when I started.
I think this is my plan as well. I tried to watch right after the polls closed and I turned into an awful wreck so now it's bobs burgers and weed and maybe some midnight stress cooking.