And about what the point of a federated internet is, which a lot of people have been invoking in this comment thread: federation is just a tool, a feature of the software.
The explanation I saw (that stuck with me) emphasized decentralisation, which from my observations seemed to be something that most federated communities also valued. I also fail to see the point in using the federated software and not federating with anyone, but I suppose that is their prerogative.
And while I understand that this is a reversible measure, it does set a precedent, and one that I think sooner or later the community is going to have to discuss. Though I do appreciate the transparancy of the Beehaw admins in this regard. I also understand that such a drastic measure was necessitated by the mod tools lacking degrees of nuance.
But do not mistake my concerns for a desire to not be here, or to demand this is undone. I believe that the stance that the admins have taken here is ultimately the best decision they could have made for their vision of this community in the current circumstances. In fact I probably wouldn't even be posting about this if I didn't want Beehaw to succeed.
This was actually my fear when it came to a federated Reddit, I was wondering what was stopping admins from defederating with any instance for any reason, and what would happen when they did. It seemed like communities would become centralised on a few instances, which seemed against the point of a federated internet.
I've since started thinking of this site more as a forum, where you can also access other forums from. And suddenly it clicked as to why I would use this site. And I think Lemmy being hailed as a Reddit replacement has actually done a disservice to its potential.
I do think, however, that there needs to be discussions as a community about what we do and don't want here, and I think the most important one is about what communities we want and how we want to handle them. I don't believe that I was subscribed to any communities on these instances, but I'm sure that there probably would have been some that I would have enjoyed.