Normally I would only browse here once a month because of a lack of content. Big W, the main problem is that most people will join the main instance because it’s the most popular. A LNG term advertising plan for the smaller instances would be a good idea to capture this extra viewer base. (I.e admin posting links to next best instance, creators on other instances posting content on main instance with a promotion at the end.) Random pic I took this summer.
I’ve experienced this kind of locking before with pixelfed (insta alt) where the main instance stopped acc creation, but I think if this becomes the case the website should redirect users to the instance that Lemmy.ml admins want to support
That would be super user friendly, it could also be just an automatic redirect with a banner on the target site saying the user was redirected