Yeah I might hop onto reddit on desktop only with an ad blocker JUST for the smaller interest based communities that took years to build up. But the big stuff like gaming or news? I'll be using this plus Mastodon.

I can appreciate that. I would suggest do both - go back to the niche reddits while they work for you, and hopefully things don't get even worse to affect that. Meanwhile, check back to these newer alternatives often to see what's going on. Perhaps at some point you can either have both worlds or even finally transition away. You have to do what works for you in the end.

When you go back you can gently encourage those folks to come here. If you aren't interested in modding a community here, you can ask the mods of those subreddits to start them.

There's a lot of chatter about joining the fediverse in subs like /r/RedditAlternatives, but you don't see people talking about the selling points in those small subs. You can start those conversations. Maybe there's no takers, and that's fine. But if you like it here theres a good chance others will too.

Same, I had a lot of hobby communities on reddit that I really enjoyed. I will probably use it when I want that experience while Lemmy grows. Hopefully one day, and with people like us' encouragement to migrate, Lemmy instances will have enough traffic to host these more niche groups.

A digression, but it is the same high quality niche information that LLM's are after I believe. I'd be curious about what you think the trove's longevity in terms of relevance is? I ask as the more timeless it is the less chance it will be replaced, and the more valuable it is a s a learning resource.

I woulad also agree that it makes sense to split your time, personally. I hope some of those communities begin to shift, but it is a idol dream.

Funny you should mention that, one of the first things I noticed on Lemmy is the culture on emojis, people like them. I for one am totally onboard 😁