I mean, dude’s not CEO, he doesn’t control the instances. He does own a very large instance, but I don’t think it’s even the most dominant instance post-redditting.
I disagree with his views, though I will admit to some sympathy on some aspects (not the genocide stuff), but ultimately, he’s just a dude who makes this software. He doesn’t own it, he doesn’t have a monopoly on its control, and really, the entirety of the Fediverse could, if he went full Huff, say “fuck you” and defederate his instance. That’s the power of a distributed service. Heck, your own instance, kbin.social, could lemmy.ml at any time and it’d have little impact overall.
Even were I to concede to him being “Huffman-like” (which I do not agree with), I don’t think he’s actually relevant enough in the real-world usage of the software to care about as far as that goes.
Ya, I don’t have any personal interactions with him and am withholding real judgement without. Even his politics, it’s hard for me to really condemn him when I don’t even know the lens he’s viewing things through. End of the day, I’m taking a best guess based on a few (3?) instances where he’s ever been recorded saying something that’s shit.
But also, even the worst tankie’s better than the best right winger, any day.