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.
Beehaw is notoriously strict with their content and philosophical approach to federation. Last I checked they banned hundreds of instances. That’s not my style. I looked for a well moderated instance that left the banning to the user and kept the server up to date and running. In fact I think they still have no instances banned yet. VLemmy did make me register and wait for approval which happened that same day and it’s been a real pleasure.
I have accounts on other instances and Kbin and all instances seem to carry about the same posts when sorting by All. The fediverse requires the user to search a bit more for the community that fits them best, and that’s a good thing.
Try a few instances and platforms. Kbin is pretty cool but not really my thing, I love Mastodon and my instance (shout out to mas.to and @rodti@mas.to).
It's nit-picky but you don't "ban" instances, you just de-federate with them. Individual users in a de-federated instance can still see posts, and can participate if they move to another instance.
It's a way of preventing brigading, if a single instance is the source of a lot of problematic users. With better moderation tools, defederation well become less common.
It’s called blocked instances and Beehaw makes liberal use of the feature.
They are free to do so, I don't see the issue.