I've noticed similar trends. It occurred to me it may be normal for such a tech. There is a lot of power in a truly decentralized social media and the powers that be will want to control it best they can. As far as I can tell (perhaps control of NIPS may be my downfall here) we just have to build around the things that are crooked and expect nothing in return like VC money or trips abroad or followers or glory whatsoever. These are the truly valuable people because they can work without ego taking control of them.