Lemmy is pretty ok actually. The lack of big user base is more of a feature than a bug.

I've found the same with Mastadon. It has a pre-eternal-September feel to it.

Has it normalized? When I first tried Lemmy it was mostly communists talking about communism. Then after some Reddit drama it seemed to be a bunch of people complaining about Reddit.

I generally like smaller sites, but those topics weren’t exactly engaging for me.