Excellent point!
Perhaps, then, I’ll reframe this: I hope for greater attention and transparency to aid in navigating available servers by business model. An opt-in directory which may actually help people find independent private servers if that’s what they’re looking for.
One example I quite liked was the instance run by archive.org. It is strictly for their own employees and not available to the public. If I worked for them, I don’t know that I’d opt in – but I appreciate that it’s offered!
Good question. None that I think would be fun for the general public…
… although…
Perhaps you might enjoy the 1976 Canadian novel “Bear”, which features an Archivist as the protagonist. It won the Governor General’s Literary Award when it came out.
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL4885078M/Bear