I dont think most people care about whether something is centralized or not. I definitely dont. I am on Lemmy because it is afaik the biggest alternative to reddit with the most content. If there was a centralized version with more and better content I would go there
Seems you're kind of a leech though, that just wants people to keep creating these sandboxed for you to play in. Federated means they are less likely to have to do all this work to rebuild in the future.
The vast majority just wants to browse the place with all the relevant content so that they don't miss out on current events. No need to resort to calling people leeches when the vast majority never even comment, let alone post.
honestly my experience starting this month is we're already over the critical mass of users. there's still stuff that isn't here that I've seen yet but I don't run out of content and get bored, so reddit's already obsolete.
You’re not wrong, but that person shouldn’t be chastised for expecting a place that bills itself as being like Reddit to uhh… be like Reddit.
The lemmy federation should try to be something fundamentally different from Reddit, given the indisputable fact that it’s form led to its downfall like other aggregators before it.