Elitism aside, having a barrier to entry is better in my opinion.
I don't know how old you are but there was a time from the mid-90s to the mid-2000s where in my opinion the Internet, in its infancy, was at its greatest... and these federated services remind me of those times.
This time before corporations ran the Internet and every moron had access to it at their fingertips. It was a time when it took real effort to get online, and so the entirety of the Internet consisted of enthusiasts and small fragmented communities. It was beautiful looking back at what it once was and how organic it was, and sad to see what it has become now.
Now the Internet is ruled by corporations mining data, and every moron under the sun happily giving it away for the next dopamine hit engineered to keep them online longer. Companies using this data to manipulate specific demographics and eventually larger swathes of society to do whatever they want... no thanks, I'd rather not be a part of that circus.
I'd rather the barrier to entry be higher, in my opinion, it increases the signal to noise ratio... which is at an all time low on most other social media sites.