I saw that this instance had a large number of users so I thought “more users->more content->more fun”. Apparently, I had to prove my value by answering 3 questions that showed my interest in their community and my value as a potential future member.
What could possibly be my value to a general purpose instance besides money? I’m a software/cloud engineer so I guess there are things I could help with, but my guess is they were expecting me to say “I can donate”.
I get it, they need donations to exist, but this upfront? And to a community I don’t even know? Maybe I’m imagining things and they were looking for something else?
Do all instances rely on donations? I’d like to contribute to the instances I enjoy at some point. But only if I feel at home with them, not as a prerequisite to join.
Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works were growing fast without an approval process and beehaw felt with the current rudimentary mod tools they couldn’t adequately handle the influx of unvetted users. Refederation is on the table in the future though.
For now I have an acct here and there and Liftoff apps makes browsing between the two seemless and I suspect it will be even more elegant once Sync for Lemmy releases in a month or two.
But keep in mind this affects beehaw users the most. If you’re on a smaller instance or kbin you’ll be able to interact with all three.