This observation has left me puzzled as I fail to grasp the underlying reasons behind it.
In a nutshell: Lemmygrad posts are often polemical, contrasting with the (usually) more relaxed discussions on the typical refugee instance when they show up on the all feed. This contrast harms the instance’s atmosphere by promoting combative discussions, thereby potentially driving users away. So, for some instances, the straightforward solution is to block the instance responsible for those intrusive posts. The ideological rift doesn’t help either.
From what I’ve heard, that admin and others on that instance used to be active users on an invitation-only, centralized reddit clone. I don’t understand why they didn’t build their site on postmill or some other unfederated platform if their intention was to defederate from the vast majority of the network when it started gaining traction.
EDIT: For the downvoter: to be clear, I’m not criticizing Beehaw for their decision - I’m criticizing the timing for their decision. While it’s better for them to defederate now before the real tidal wave of refugees arrives, they still waited until a lot of users from other instances had discovered their communities & had started relying on them. So to defederate when they did is at worst callous and at best an indication that their admins lack foresight.
It’s fine that they want a walled garden, especially when that’s the type of community their admins are used to moderating. I might not understand it (leftypol represent!), but experience tells me that there’s always going to be a demand for echo chambers no matter the platform and that it’s useless to try and fight that.