tbf people just wanna sign up and click on funny links, not browse through 100 rando instances to find the one that lines up with their exact interests and wait for approval and worry about uptime and whether their instance will still exist in a year
It’s definitely all of the above.
Hexbear is particularly vexing to me. According to the fediverse observer they’re less than a month old and yet have already become one of the most active instances.