I saw that this instance had a large number of users so I thought "more users->more content->more fun". Apparently, I had to prove my value by answering 3 questions that showed my interest in their community and my value as a potential future member.
What could possibly be my value to a general purpose instance besides money? I'm a software/cloud engineer so I guess there are things I could help with, but my guess is they were expecting me to say "I can donate".
I get it, they need donations to exist, but this upfront? And to a community I don't even know? Maybe I'm imagining things and they were looking for something else?
Do all instances rely on donations? I'd like to contribute to the instances I enjoy at some point. But only if I feel at home with them, not as a prerequisite to join.
So I can see why people coming from centralized, for-profit platforms would assume everything is about money - because over there, everything IS.
In the fediverse (and the open source parts of the internet in general) - people are doing things for free for others benefit. As such, they don't NEED to cater to and attract everyone, nor do they generally have the time and money to run something that will require full-time effort. They can be choosy. They can look for 'their people'.
Do not take it personally. They didn't even reject you, but they do want you to put more effort into explaining why you want to join. And if you don't want to put in more effort and hate all these rules already then thats a good sign beehaw isn't for you. Looks like you found a good alternative
Eh its more like you showed up at someone's block party and they don't have all the bells and whistles of a nightclub, because they don't expect as many people to even know they exist and they aren't charging a entrance fee