Federation is, always has been, and always will be an option. And an option that works ok when there’s a small number of people on other sites doesn’t always work well for people when there’s a large number.

Plus, it’s not like they defederated from everyone. They just had issues with moderation on your instance and a few others. Plenty of people off-site still have access to beehaw communities, because we haven’t been acting like little stains.

You’re going to be in for a world of psychic pain once there are 2 thousand smaller lemmy instances and they don’t all universally federate.

And they won’t. Because they don’t have to. And you can’t make them.