How about during the signup process(step) the user gets instance allocated randomly?
The biggest F U you get while signing up on lemmy is choosing a instance and I know this process acts as a filter in itself, clearing the randoms and normies. But if lemmy instance is assigned randomly, it is like hitting two birds with one stone. it solves discouragement you get when signing up but also distributes the load on different servers. the only downside I see with this is if the instance is closed.
Edit: I know there are a lot of variables and dependencies that I didn’t think of earlier. But I just wanted to imagine a welcome page of lemmy with simple, and as less steps as possible in the sign up process.