I wanted a server that wasn't likely to close I don't really know for sure, but I imagine it's easy to underestimate how much money or time is required to run a server. And I'd really prefer not having to worry about migrating. The 'run by Lemmy's developers' part makes me think that either the risk will be lower or the people running the server will know how to prevent reaching a point like that.
I didn't want to join a very specific instance As I see it, there are two possible scenarios:
The instance I join will affect the content I'm exposed (and not exposed) to, in which case I want to experience 'the whole internet' rather than a section of it.
The instance I choose is irrelevant to the content I get, in which case, (apart from community rules) it shouldn't really matter which one I choose, so I would just join the biggest instance.
Still something that could help with the choosing-an-instance process is to display in the list of servers the community rules and if they are blocking certain communities.
This was pretty much exactly my thought process. My biggest concern here is account stability-from what I can tell, if your instance gets taken down by its owners, your account is gone.
So until the devs figure out a way to centralize account credentials so that isn't an issue, I'd much rather join on a big instance than a small one, especially one that the devs of lemmy themselves own. They have a clear interest in keeping it running, so the chances of my account vanishing are small, just like with bigger social media sites.
The hard reality here is that, much like in real life markets, federated social media will likely tend toward a small number of very large instances and lots of significantly smaller ones. Most people want a stable, consistent experience and don't want to worry about losing communities or accounts. And unless an instance is STRICTLY policing it's communities, like lemmygrad for instance, then I think we will see the same thing happen with communities-right now there are lots of communities that are basically identical, and I think we'll see one or two of each become the "main" ones people use-and those will likely be on larger instances.
You worry it'll close if you choose a smaller server, but you don't mind your server being instable due to being over capacity (something it's already having issues with, hence asking people not to join)? Like, no matter if the servers goes down due to it being over it's capacity or due to quiting, you still can't use it... Sure it may come back up, but why not join a stable semi-sized instance instead that run smoothly for you and doesn't cause more trouble for the devs?
I mean, you trust the developers to keep things running smoothly, but you don't trust their message to not join because they currently can't...