The actual content is way better now than it was the first couple of months after the Reddit thing. Initially a lot of the comments were either Reddit related or people trying to force communities that didn't necessarily have the population to survive, yet. That's all fallen away now and the content feels much more organic. Someone opening a Lemmy instance for the first time is going to find today's front page much more engaging than what it looked like in June/July.
Lemmy is becoming its own thing rather than a reflection of Reddit.
In some ways a lot more responsive as well. The news that Kissinger died was all over Lemmy for hours before I noticed one post about it crack the front page of Reddit, for example.
Yeah the stream of stuff hitting my front page is a lot higher in quality and volume in the last few months. I don't post on reddit anymore but still visit for content and I am doing that less and less lately.
Lots of posts made by bots, with majority top level comments being short quips and attempts at jokes as opposed to discussion. So many discussions devolve into ad hominems almost immediately.
Just like Reddit.
It's a social media phenomenon I think. The lowest common denominator will always dominate unless communities push against it.