It's interesting how attractive the thought of becoming mainstream is. Bigger = better.

mods and admins would just be slaves to Meta focussed on dealing with their large variety of users rather than trying to grow our own communities.

I wonder if mods & admins would just be overwhelmed, or if Meta would find a way of using their effort and hours to their advantage? ie use them as a free modding force for their product (indirectly). Labour for your Lemmy instance would become labour for Meta.

I'm surprised by your full turnaround in opinion. Some of your earlier thoughts are valid: they probably won't be able to track you any more than they currently can (through read-only Lemmy interaction) and more interaction does have its benefits.

I guess perhaps defederating them now vs later might come down to whether or not you see Meta as a person or a company. If a new person joins/federates then you generally don't want to pre-judge them, even if they've had a bad history you hope they can stick to the rules and participate well. Alas Meta isn't a person, they're a bit more like a government (they're bigger than some nations) and very single minded in their pursuits. They don't have the ability to turn around and go "apologies that I'm hurting people, I'll actually change my ways and start following the values of your community now".