Right, the reason they tried to do the trusted instance nonsense is because of the threat of defederation after some major Lemmy admins threw a tantrum about it. They were cagey about admitting this openly but will basically admit that is the case if pressed.

Back when they decided to scrap the idea (over back channel discussions with almost zero user input, I might add) I spent some time arguing about the decision, and Blaze basically came out and said that “You are welcome to fork the code and restore the functionality, but nobody would federate with you.” I am paraphrasing, and don’t care to go back and find the comment, but I’m sure someone else can if they are motivated.