I really try to go through my stuff and delete things I no longer need - more usually documents rather than media... I always worry I might remove something I realise I need later! So you are probably more sensible!
People using an instance that appears to try to act and communicate transparently and asks for donations from the community to run the platform, should actually be transparent in my opinion.
People can just go somewhere else, and no one is obligated to say or do anything, but users appear to value transparency, and I feel as a collective we should value open and honest discussion about issues like this rather than shutting it down or being confrontational or argumentative or rude about it.
It might be nothing, it might be something: either way, people are entitled to feel they deserve to be kept informed. Whether they are entitled to or not is a different kettle of fish.
Some people perhaps find they enjoy being able to control large communities - there are definitely some "power mod" users forming here on Lemmy and I don't know that it is clear why or what that will look like going forward.
I don't think being a mod is always about having bad motives. I look after a community for a table top role playing game across Discord, Reddit, and here - the community isn't huge but isn't insignificant (expect here where there is no activity at all, the main hub is Discord). I recruited a team of mods to help with that, particularly Discord. Not to speak for them, but it's people who enjoy being around the community and being a part of it. Nothing selfish or power-hungry about it - it is simply for the love of supporting a community you come to love and helping to make sure it continues to be a space the people using it want to be a part of. I set up the community because I enjoy the game, there wasn't one already, and I didn't want to clutter up other spaces talking about it. People joined and more importantly stayed because they enjoy the people and the space.
I think a test is when there are issues, or when you decide it is time to move on - are you happy to pass the community on to others who would like to look after it, or do you not do that and lock it down or get rid of it entirely. That feels incredibly selfish, and speaks to your reasons I think; whereas if you are happy to pass the torch because you care about the community which has formed in the space more than whatever you get out of doing the job, it is probably more likely you are doing the job altruistically and because you care.
I'm sure the above isn't always the case and there are so many reasons and scenarios, just my thoughts at the moment :)
Same here - I check in on Reddit once a day but only to see what a wasteland it is becoming! I moved from other platforms mostly to Reddit over a decade ago and more than happy to make the change again now.
Liftoff is my Lemmy app of choice, and it is great to see the communities grow and change as time moves on.
There seems to be a number of instances where people have set up or been added to quite a large number of unrelated communities - perhaps to just get as many under their belt as possible for whatever reason. Power mods seemingly becoming a thing on this instance.
A couple of the mods have a large number of communities which is slightly concerning if there are issues. Many unrelated topics, it seems like there are people just trying to get as many communities under their control as possible!
Nooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooo (storage limit reached)