I think, for mass appeal lemmy will ultimatively need communities for popular topics (games, trends, etc.), which can bring in lots of new users. From what I've seen so far the topics are still rather niche, or can't compete with identical communites on major platforms. When the traction starts getting big enough, it might just run on its own.
This comment is also more or less a test, trying out the platform.
I first saw lemmy a few months ago, but forgot about it. The recent Reddit events have sparked interest again, and I am feeling adventurous. Major Social media platforms seem to collapse / mess up one after the other now, and the concept behind federation is very intriguing (especially that part that even different applications can communicate with each other thanks to ActivityPub).