Humans who run instances are real people who have jobs and mortgages and kids. I also like having piracy communities around to balance the greedy ass corporations trying to control media and copyright…I’m glad to know they are there if I need them or feel like screwing around with it. I just wonder if the people ranting all indignantly acting like instances are competing for their usership would feel the same if the most active instance was on a server physically sitting in their basement, or paid for by money tied to them in the real world. Yes it seems pretty unlikely that you’re ever going to run into issues with law enforcement, copyright claims, lawsuits…but how much would you risk for a fucking hobby you do for free? Would you risk your house? Your job? I would not. Grow up. No one cares what instance you use.
Not sure where LW is hosted, but successful lawsuit absolutely doesn’t matter, just the existence of one. You spin up a server, host your instance, and any corp with their army of lawyers decide to sue. Just stop and think about what a pure hassle and the cost of even responding to the suit is. You’re probably in for a few grand and dozens of hours just on having a suit leveled against you. They don’t have to be morally right, legally right, they don’t have to to win, these companies can ruin lives and it’s just a Tuesday for them.