I wouldn't worry about Lemmy having as many users as reddit in the short term. Success is not just a measure of userbase. A system just needs a critical mass, a minimum number of users, to be self-perpetuating. For a reddit post that has 10k comments, most normal people only read a few dozen comments anyways. You could have half the comments on that post, and frankly the quality might go up, not down. (That said, there are many communities below that minimum critical mass at the moment.)
Lemmy is now a real alternative. When reddit imploded Lemmy wasn't fully set up to take advantage of the exodus, so a lot of users came over to the fediverse and gave up right away. There were no phone apps, the user interface was rudimentary, and communities weren't yet alive. Next time reddit screws up in a high profile way, and they will screw up, the fediverse will be ready.
Lemmy has way more potential than reddit. Reddit's leadership has always been incompetent and slow at fixing problems. The fediverse has been very responsive to user feedback in comparison.

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[–] z00s@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (6 children)

The future of Lemmy has nothing to do with R whatsoever.

[–] Tygr@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If that’s true, thrn Reddit’s explosion in popularity had nothing to do with Digg.

[–] DosDude@retrolemmy.com -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The critical mass of Reddit was many years after the Digg debacle.

[–] Tygr@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Would the critical mass occur if the original wave didn’t join and produce content?

[–] rab@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I disagree. R messing up is how we get more users

[–] Vodik_VDK@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

No, us generating content and community is how we get users. Reddit's conduct only creates episodic influxes of users.

[–] Historical_General@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A good many of us are here because of R's apps no longer working, including myself. It's been a month and now I don't even remember using R on my phone tbh. I did mostly use desktop, but I've also acclimatised very quickly.

[–] Subverb@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Which is one reason I am confused by the response to Sync. We left because of third party apps getting screwed over but a segment of Lemmy is saying "Yeah, but only foss apps should migrate to Lemmy because, 'mah foss sensibilities'."

[–] Eddie@lemmy.lucitt.social 3 points 1 year ago

As a proud and loud member of the FOSS community, I will say this: The FOSS community is cringe as hell and people need to start going back to the root of the movement and remember that we are about CHOICE and FREEDOM.

If you're judging somebody for using the platform of their choice, FOSS or not, you are the problem.

[–] HR_Pufnstuf@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You don't wish to see it kill off R?

[–] InternetUser2012@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I'd rather not because then all the trolls will come here and it will turn into R2.0

[–] ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

As much as I want this to be true, it's simply patently false.

[–] o_oli@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Lemmy is literally a reddit clone, of course it has lots to do with reddit what are you talking about