I experienced the same thing! (Except my home instance is FMHY, not LW)
It is the same experience as trying to view NSFW subs on another instance that I’m not logged into. I already know there’s a filter that won’t show NSFW if you aren’t logged in, which explains those. I even checked, and didn’t see this as having anything marked NSFW.
I’m going to chalk it up as a Lemmy bug.
Possibly. I’m not entirely sure how to interpret that part.
One plausible scenario is that they brought in a consultant, who said their data would be worth $XXXX on the open market. A common element of MBA thinking is that any potential profits are something you are entitled to, regardless of the consequences. It’s also pretty clear they don’t have a mature management team, or a viable path to realize those profits. But they had to stop someone else from getting it, so there was a rushed decision. I don’t quite know how it coincided with killing 3rd party apps, though, unless it was just more really incompetent management.