For self-hosted hobby instances, expenses are likely all out of pocket. Instances amassing a large amount of users could potentially be driven to aggressive financially-driven changes of how their instance works, to maximize exposure to ad posts or sponsored pinned posts, for example. Donation-centric contribution helps alleviate that kind of seeping financial platform degradation.

100%. I used to occasionally do software development over SSH with a phone with sliding keyboard when I was out and about without a laptop, the keys were just big enough not to be uncomfortable. It was great to type into a smartphone like a desktop computer, and some programs could use the keyboard for functionality. Mobile experience has become more bland and cluttered with virtual keyboards/buttons/‘joysticks’ taking up screen real-estate. At the very least, it’s nice that with an adapter many USB keyboards can work with an Android device.

Not until the tendency for the mainstream to gravitate to centralization is changed. Lemmy will need exponential growth to become large enough in userbase to be a mainstream consideration to use the federated replacement.