This is a concern, but luckily this isn't required. I set up hobbit.world to host my Tolkien related communities. It only costs $6 a month plus the $35/yr for the domain name to host a tiny instance like this. I don't need to depend on anyone but my hosting provider.

To be safe I should download backups once a month or so.

But the point is that for big communities that people put a lot of time into, there should be an instance for each one owned by one of the mods.

Edit: Meant to reply to the person concerned about the centralization of communities.

The community here is already 100x better then anyone I've communicated with on Reddit

…the other 50 who showed up had to stand in the hall or not get in at all. They said the venue sucks and left.

c/showerthoughts

https://invidious.slipfox.xyz/watch?v=zN7o_fA9YrI