I think people fear a problematic "BDFL". On the other hand, the beauty of FOSS is that it can be forked in case you don't agree with the current owners.

I heard that Lemmy is the second most popular software on the Fediverse, and choosing between Lemmy and kbin doesn't have much impact due to the interop (although I hope to see tools for easy migration, if needed). What matters is how well the instance is maintained, and the community.