"the company looked at the history of social media over the past decade and didn’t like what it saw… existing companies that are only model motivated by profit and just insane user growth, and are willing to tolerate and amplify really toxic content because it looks like engagement… "
As I see it, there are three major ways a fork could gain significant standing among the community:
I honestly think any one of these is easily manageable by a handful of people in off time. Other parts of the fediverse of similar size are chock full of forks.
Good luck.