Interesting take. I like the light philosophical bend there with the mental value. I think you’re right about that. I have been more considering whether the cumulative data of a platform like Lemmy as a whole is something that we as the users/server should be asserting our ownership of. Or, whether it is effectively worthless.
I’m a programmer. If someone had an interest they could preserve all of your self-hosted data without your permission. I think it is worth considering tho, if all of this is valuable then it would be ideal if we could get that value into the accounts of people in need rather than the alternative.