Right now the user count Lemmys is comparatively tiny when held up against reddit - but the user count isn’t the thing that makes a social media site, it’s the engagement
So even if you’re used to lurking, try to get a little more active! Post memes, vote on posts, talk in the comments, whatever!
If people come here and see activity, content, and discussions, they’re more likely to stay and contribute their own - if they come and see a ghost town, they’ll just go back to reddit
I doubt Reddit will really die though. When Musk got Twitter, many fleed to Mastodon, but over time, many returned back to Twitter (?). Digg did fail though, but I don’t know when that happened, probably wasn’t really in the internet at that time yet.
The hardest thing for me was finding the “right” instance to register in, and that is probably the challenge for most people. Going back to the “popular topics” thing, when bigger communities about a certain thing, or entire instances about that thing exist, people might just register there.
My current guess is that you either pick a general-purpose instance or a specific instance of your interest, if it exists.
I agree, the hardest part for me was getting started.
“I like news - I’ll just register on the news Lemmy!” Ah. Sweet summer child.
Luckily I stumbled across my current instance and the creator seemed friendly and like a decent human being. But I doubt many casual Redditors will have the same patience to figure it out.