The other important part here is that inflation is lower this year than last. So the extra high raises last year may have helped keep up but aren’t needed as much.

As far as I can tell there’s no direct relationship between iPhone sales and the change in raises. If anything I’d expect low sales to lead to layoffs or closing stores.

I think those requirements make sense. The point of the list is to give people places where they can sign up that will have some activity. 5 active users is something and federated with another active instance means more content. Once they’re on the list, I bet other instances will want to federate with them and then users get even wider reach.