Yes, this is a real thing that will happen. However, this is no different than a popular website like, say, HN, linking to someone's hack project and giving it

Yes, this is a real thing that will happen. However, this is no different than a popular website like, say, HN, linking to someone's hack project and giving it the hug of death. This stuff happens, and if any operational element boils down to someone's hobby then you'll see some issues. That doesn't mean Mastodon is inherently flawed any more than web pages being inherently flawed. What will happen is the same thing that happened to web servers and email servers. Businesses will pop up to run your instance for you.