Just curious why that’s such a big strike against it.
There's no strike from me.
I believe it’s open source as well.
It is.
...I’m sure there’s more to the story!
There is. However, I'm not aware of the full story. All I know, personally, is that he was a former Reddit administrator. He left, for whatever reason(s), and formed Tildes thereafter. My self, and several of the current mods/admins at Beehaw, helped him beta test the site/software.
Is it possible to have some communities be exclusive to Beehaw users?
I'm, fairly, certain the answer is no.
In response to your second paragraph, we are better than holding our heads above water. We have been planning/discussing solutions for months...we will come up with a way out of this predicament...it's only temporary.
Oh yeah! I remember using BBS prior to WWW.