When I realized it was that dude who tried signing up to my instance I lost my shit laughing, if he was screened prior it’s obvious he wouldn’t have gotten in. This is precisely what happens when you focus on growth over organically cultivating a healthy community.
If that is true in any way whatsoever, that is a completely moronic long term goal. Lemmy devs themselves have encouraged instances who do such a thing to defederate. I don’t see how realistically advertising or monetization would be done not only without immense privacy concerns that would likely affect the rest of the fediverse but without major protests and mass defederation. The backlash against it would be immense, not just on lemmy but across the fediverse itself.