For those reasons it reminds me what coming to Reddit in the first place was like. It’s really fun to build up a community. It’s hard to see compared to what Reddit is now, and the polish you speak of that to me while there are some conveniences or extra features has overall messed up what I liked about it. Lemmy or some other system may or may not ever be as popular as Reddit, but it’s way more engaging to be part of a growing community than an oversaturated one IMO. You get to help define what the place will be like to a much greater extent.