great answer thank you!

so, sounds like #3 could be good if there is anyone decent with enough money to spend on it. which I can’t imagine who that would be.

A lawsuit would take ages, even if it was simple, which I doubt would be the case, and I doubt a judge is going to make specific rulings about API fees or whatever.

Wild fantasy: form a collective (some sort of formal co op structure) of users/mods/devs and buy out some investor(s), OR wait til the IPO and buy lots of shares to have a formal voting bloc. What do you think? I am thinking of some sort of semi democratic/representative structure. Better or worse? It burns to the ground in chaotic drama, or it manages to be barely coherent enough to function with all internally competing interests?