A thought prompted by seeing instances growing and struggling to have enough resources. Then and now, people in groups trying to communicate something. Hardware became incredibly faster over decades, storage became incredibly more huge, and software bloat kept pace?
It can be done optionally, right? I fully agree that creating an account, which (ironically) cannot be federated using one of the big IDPs, creates unnecessary friction.
To be honest, when I see what happens to reddit with the normies left behind, I see the lack of authentication via a big brother company as a pro.