You could also just have a website that 1. Selects a random instance from the ones currently available and up and 2. Shows all instances and whether they are up or down. This would encourage new users to not all pile on to the same instance.

I’m not very knowledgeable about this stuff (what’s a docker? What’s a kubernetes? Lol) but I don’t think as of right now with Lemmy, kbin, etc you can just throw a bigger single server at the problem. Anyways, that’s kinda against the purpose of decentralization anyway. I know you’re supposed to pick a server based on what one you like, rules or whatever but right now they’re pretty much all equivalent (except lemmygrad, lol)

Nah, read the AMA. He and Reddit (the company) in general are doubling down. I was hoping it was just anchoring (where the initial price for something is so ridiculously high, any other offer even if it’s more than you should pay seems reasonable). But from his comments, and the Devs’ responses, it’s clear it’s basically just a way to kill the API totally for users, I guess the only possible remaining use for the API is AI training. Tech companies would probably pay that much because it genuinely is worth it to them.