Because "user first" orgs like cohost have learned the hard way that the money math doesn't work out when your service gets even a few users. Lots of hidden costs to running social media.

Then you have the other end, mastodon and federation. At the very least, solves the user culture problem somewhat but does not solve the hidden costs of hosting and moderation at all. Especially if you get a sudden influx of users.

IMO VC money, corporate money, whatever you want to call it, is more or less required to run social media at scale.