Honestly, I feel bad for whining about it, because it seems to be working today fine. I am sure other instances are doing alright, I see enough Lemmy posts federated to know it’s not like… systemic… so I should have tried more before complaining. It’s just my personal experience with the one I joined.
With the option, I find myself having both beehaw and Kbin tabs open with little preference for either, which you’d think is redundant with federation, but idk. I do like that if one is down, there is a chance another is up.
I am not happy about it, though there were rumors for a while now. Like, yes, I have spent an absurd amount on TS3/TS4 dlcs all in all, EA will probably get me for TS5 in whatever form that takes… but F2P always means worse monetization. I see it being like TS3 with a la carte buy mode stuff through premium currency, which is such a step back from expansion packs (as much as that got shrunk over time over game packs, stuff packs, and kits).