I too am worried about what happens when instances start beefin and defederating.

But if a corp such as Meta owned Lemmy.world and one day decided to charge others for the right to federate, then it is also shitty.

The predatory practice of Big corps is offer service at a loss and once enough people on board, force users to pay to keep using.

Current Lemmy(ers?) have to realize this and not post or interact with monetized instances to avoid putting their content behind a paywall.