The prevention of rust does slow scale accumulation because rust is a rough porous surface that scale likes to stick to. But other than that (anodes also are rough porous surfaces) I’m not aware of any way they actively reduce it. Maybe the electronic ones, but that’s out of my wheelhouse (and they aren’t sacrificial).
Time and screen space are limited. When I take a poo break, I don’t want to have to wade through a bunch of posts in a language I don’t speak or about sports I care nothing about. But at the same time I am open to new communities that I might not have imagined even existed. So I just leave it on all and block the communities/instances I’m not interested in. It was a lot of work at first, but it’s pretty nice now.