These were the two factors for me. I tried beehaw first, but after submitting my application and waiting an hour or so, I still couldn't get in. Whether or not the application is a good idea overall, it's a barrier to entry. With the blackout I finally decided to be a brave boy and try to figure out the fediverse, and after overcoming that major hurdle I'm met with a literal gatekeeper. I haven't bothered to check if I ultimately got in since I have am account here now.
So then I'm right back to the drawing board doing searches figuring out which other servers are stable, have decent policies, aren't run by sketchy folks, etc. It was a lot, but this servers reputation having run a mastodon server is what got me to come here.
I think a lot of people are like me and will get curious about lemmy and want to dive in one afternoon to see what it's about. They don't want to spend an afternoon researching like their setting up a smart home ecosystem. Then to be met with gatekeeping, your going to lose people. Maybe that's fine in the grand scheme of things.
That's the part I enjoyed the most. Writing a short description on the application page at Beehaw. And now that I'm in it. I can say that it's the best instance currently. The people and the community is great. I haven't seen a troll or a complainer in the instance in Beehaw. I have many accounts in other instances and Im assured that Beehaw is where it's at.
Beehaw doesn't have the right attitude for a federated environment. They are having problems moderating and dealing with the sudden jump in traffic, so they cut off the largest server. What they should have done is get more help.
They are breaking lemmy because they are self centered. They only care about beehaw. They don't care about all of lemmy.
Whena person posts to anything@beehaw.org and never ever gets a reply, and sees other posts getting replies, are they going to stick with lemmy? No, they are going to go back to reddit. To me, that's breaking the platform.
Heh writing the application was part of the fun! :D
No, really, I think that at least in Beehive, it is an important step: It ensures a minimum understanding of the environment of the instance and its mission, and as long as the option to join other instances is there, why not?