Not trying to insert my own opinion but I believe it’s because the core Lemmy devs actually admin and/or are involved in said instance. Well verify for yourself but somebody said it’s hosted from the same IP as lemmy.ml. And the core devs comment and moderation histories are public for all to see.

You pointed out all the extra complexities. Visiting multiple websites, and making a decision, and understanding what the decision means. Those are the complexities, nobody is saying they are big but even you recognize they exist.

Mainstream is also what killed Reddit, better to have a “big enough to be good” community. I almost appreciate that the barrier of entry is slightly higher.

Thanks. To clarify, my server would have to do this? I don’t run my own server, I just joined a fairly small one (I didn’t know it would matter).