My opinion is that what matters is how much money each part of the network receives.
For example, instances tend to be transparent about their funding. And we can see that some of them are just months away of being out of cash. Meanwhile, we see people subscribing(!) to a very expensive app that charges $20 to remove ads (and tracking and data collecting) otherwise.
I think is okay to keep people aware of these things. Getting defensive about it is just a waste of energy. For both sides.
Profoundly internalized hierarchy all over this thread.