They started using v3 onion very early, always Tor-friendly. They started to accept XMR early, not only BTC. You guys are basically right, though: their jokes are dirty & a bit tasteless (though perhaps related to freedom of speech). This service is not for normal users anyway.

Don’t worry. You can’t sign up even if you want to. It’s invite-only now like RiseUp.

It used to be much more decentralized, peaceful, not-for-profit. No systematic tracking (No GA.js). No affiliate/Google Ad infestation.

Individual users had their own small, cozy, hobby websites, not for monetizing - purely writing about whatever they were personally interested in, not trying to increase page views. A lot of good, pure, text-based websites, which perfectly worked without JavaScript nor cookies. Early webmasters were able to type clean HTML directly and fluently using a plain text editor, not depending on centralized platforms, so page load was super-fast, not bloated.

Individual users themselves owned the Internet, so to speak; were not owned by centralized platforms.

What Happens if an Instance Disappears?

I may be wrong, but one potential problem in such a case might be that (not you’d totally lose your data but on the contrary) you won’t be able to delete your posts etc. even if you want to delete them, since its copy is “mirrored” by many other instances. Not sure though.