I can’t just choose a smaller instance blindly when I’m trying to build for the long term. I need time to vet admins, align ideals, understand the infrastructure, place trust in the admins that they won’t just give up, or make a critical error, etc. It’s a fundamental different calculus than just making a user account. Even a large instance like Fmhy fumbled the ball and had their domain sniped. I need guarantees that where I choose to park my community will still be around when the going gets tough. This all takes time, and prior to Mali, I had time. Once Fmhy fell, I wasn’t sure if I had hours, let alone days or weeks. I chose to place my trust in the largest instance because they have the best track record, not just on lemmy, but also on mastodon.

As for being taken by surprise, not everyone follows TLD news. I thought ml for was machine learning, not the country of Mali. And I only heard of all of this this week. Needless to say, I get the concerns and sympathize with them, but I made the best choice for my community.