Given the seriousness of the accusations, my sarcastic wording was maybe not appropriate. To clarify:

"Benevolent dictator" is an established term in open source software to refer to a founder who maintains control of a widely-used project. I do not consider it an insult, just a description of the project management structure. But it is an acknowledgement of the fact that all accounts on this server are dependent on one person being able & willing to continue running it.

The fact that mstdn.ca is entirely dependent on one person is a problem for all members to deal with. No one is holding us hostage. We're happily taking advantage of Chad's time & resources. I don't know all the reasons why efforts to transition to a formal non-profit society failed, but one of them is that the vast majority of members, myself included, weren't willing to commit to doing the work.