So suppose Urbit is genuinely useful. What is to stop someone from forking it, stripping out the obscurantism, writing friendly documentation, then redistributing galaxies/etc in a different way?
It would take a complete rewrite. Urbit is written entirely in an idiosyncratic programming language stack that compiles to an idiosyncratic combinator language.
I believe that a forked urbit could only create entirely new, independent galaxies/stars/planets if those were in a completely separate namespace (ie parallel universe). This could be great, maybe, for siloed intranets or maybe as a means of enjoying some of the benefits of urbit technology without paying for the 'land'. I might be wrong.