I get the idea of instances, like you can make your own and this is good for privacy. But some lemmy instances are much more popular and this in fact makes it another Reddit. If there are separate instances for niche topics, why not make it another community inside a larger instance?
Some users just want to melt in to the crowd I guess.
I have my own domain and i love it. In fact, it’s going to become more and more important knowing how to self host things. Big tech is extreamly preditory.