Hmm. In the old days, pretty much every ISP ran a Usenet server. The cost was covered as part of your internet connection bill, it was just part of the service.
I could see a potential future where running a Lemmy instance became table-stakes for ISPs, like Usenet used to be.
The story you link literally says:
"the varying ways to count and then interpret police data means it’s worth taking all claims about crime rates rising or falling with a pinch of salt"
They go to great pains to point out that the data is not recorded consistently, so drawing any conclusions from it is fraught.