well us just having a alternative keeps it being in one place and then there are other things like slashdot or any other competitors. piefed does a good job of grouping things (kinda comics seems to be split in at least two topics). Personally I don't want to be in one place with everyone on the planet as I don't like many people. I want a place with somewhat like minded folks just like I would with a club or bar or whatever.

go back to using forums.

You can subscribe to communities on different instances. I click All or Subscribed I see stuff that isn't just in my instance.

That's kind of the opposite of fragmentation. Personally, I enjoy seeing which instance each person is from.

dozens of barely active forums.

well, lemmy itself is pretty niche. Yea I get that it's frustrating when there's a niche community with basically zero activity ... I feel like that's just because lemmy itself is relatively small.