I think that's what has surprised me the most. When I moved here after the API shutdown, things seemed pretty slow. But now it seems activity is really picking up. I would be very interested to see the fediverse growth rate vs. Reddit's when it first started. I'm just surprised to see how quickly things are changing here.
The best part is now all the foundations are here too so when the next big 'event' happens Lemmy will be in an even better position to absorb all those users.
You're right. It was rough at first. A lot of outages, confusion, etc. But more people on now, more hand-holding for newbies, etc. It'll be easier to adjust I feel.