Like it or not, Beehaw is one of the instances that lots of people have been hearing about, and so you’re going to play a part in that pivotal moment. Not allowing people to participate could drive them away.

popping in to say: while we’re sympathetic, this crudely speaking isn’t really an obligation we signed up for, nor one which really should be incumbent on us to solve (not least because of the OP statistic). for what it’s worth though in between keeping this place functional, we are trying to shoot things to the Lemmy devs and community as a whole to make the platform as good as it can, and to ensure instances can accommodate the many, many users we can’t and won’t take in.

i’ll reiterate again that we have specific goals and we make it very clear—as clear as it can be, within the context of Lemmy’s limitations—what we’re looking for, why we’re looking for that, and that this simply isn’t a community for everyone. (we didn’t even ask to be passed around by the Lemmy devs as an instance you should try to sign up for in the absence of being able to use lemmy.ml, lol). that’s for federation reasons but also practical ones, and as much as i understand many people want a new place to go for a lot of people that place isn’t necessarily going to be here.