What caused users to sign up to specifically lemmy.ml, instead of other servers? I am aware a lot of users signed up after the spez AMA, but even before the AMA the site was overloaded.
For me, I think it was a combination of not understanding the system and not knowing anything about any instances. Which ones can you trust to not just shut down and make you loose your data?
This, I wanted to join an instance with management I somewhat agreed with on matters of federation and had longevity. I didn’t want to join beehaw or lemmy.one for the first reason; and the others don’t really have the longevity to see how admins will react in certain cases.
If your instance shuts down, you won't be able to use that account, and your existing content will be in a limbo of pre-shutdown instances knowing about them and post-shutdown ones not. I assume a similar limbo will happen to the communities hosted on your instance, but I'm not entirely sure on what specifically will happen.