I also agree the front page subs were mostly filled with shallow fiction, but there was definitely good stuff going for Reddit before Spez f’d it up. I’d say the magic was in the small and niche hobby/fandom subs, the communities in a lot of them were truly unique and vibrant.
Reddit didn’t have an official for ages either (though there were cough brilliant third party apps which drew in massive amounts of mobile users that Reddit toootally would know better than to shut down cough). Right now I’m hoping some capable indie dev picks up Lemmy like those third party devs picked up Reddit, but that would definitely take time. I agree having an intuitive mobile app would probably be a great step for the growth of the Fediverse though.
Before this entire fiasco, I didn’t even realise googling “____ Reddit” was such a global phenomenon. But I also didn’t realise just how much I relied on these surprisingly specific answers to just about everything until now that it’s gone. Damn… I’ll miss it.
I think what’s scaring a lot of people off is moderation. I’ve considered creating a few communities myself but I’ve never been one for managing. I try to do my part by interacting with communities that have been created and driving activity. Huge kudos to those who are founding these communities though.