I rent a Digital Ocean droplet with two terabytes of RAM just so my friends and I can stay in touch.

I use social media automation tools to schedule posts ahead of time several times a day.

What were these posts in regards to? were they sales pitches with links? Were they obvious commercial interests?

They suspended me out of the blue for “spam”

Who are “they”? Which instance banned you?

Smaller communities usually gather together around common themes.

if I cannot be on the primary server, then there isn’t much of a point for me being on Mastodon

People who came for the social aspect of social media seem to enjoy smaller servers.

People who want clout, want to advertise something, want to advocate for a position, or became addicted to the “favorite” / “boost” serotonin drips will probably be happier on one of the larger servers.