You specifically are not wanted because our sensors detected you were carrying a briefcase labeled “bribe money” that was actually full of borg nanites.

There are definitely some weird people who want the clout of owning a “popular” instance, but mark my words they will flame out soon enough if popularity is the root of their desire. Instance management is a lot of tedious work and if you don’t have a passion for facilitating conversation and connecting people you’re not going to last. This isn’t Reddit where a powermod can just sit there and do the bare minimum for free.

Instance admin here, this is backwards. Instance costs increase with the number of users because we don’t sell ads. The only people we want signing up for accounts on our instance are people who are excited to be there, and intend to bring their singular wit and conversational A-game.

How much effort would it be for them to create a new one and do it again?

Minimal, but it is the domain that gets blocked so the attacker would still need to purchase a new domain.