Look, you're absolutely right about pretty much everything you said here. My issue is not exactly with the concept of federation per se, but with the potentially cavalier selection from a top-down level.

The Beehaw situation is really what I mean. At least for the next few months, it seems to me that there will likely be a lot of confusion and frustration over how this all works from new users, and even longtime users will be left wondering whether they need to just keep making new accounts in order to interact with the communities they have history in. C/technology on Beehaw is the de-facto tech community, and it's now inaccessible to a huge number of users, and for somewhat specious reasons.

I understand the utility of federation and de-federation, but I don't think it's being handled well right now.