@jstogdill If you ever have some time, here’s a talk I gave last year (the tools have come along a bit since then) but the first ten minutes or so is probably a good summary.
https://ar.al/2024/06/24/small-web-computer-science-colloquium-at-university-of-groningen/
Basically, you’re right, they could easily be, which is why Domain is designed not to scale, why I’m spending so much time/effort to ensure anyone run their own, why you can easily point any other domain at it after the initial setup and easily migrate to a different server, and why it’s all free software, etc. Not saying some asshat won’t find some bloody way of centralising/sabotaging it but trying my darnest to ensure it’s not in any way interesting for those folks. 🤞