It's specifically a forum with branching threads, popularity scoring, and topic-oriented communities that ordinary users can create and moderate. That's the successful formula.
Lemmy is missing that last feature. I hope that's merely because it's not implemented yet and not the result of an intentional design decision.
Me too. I connect a lot of memories with reddit. I found out about so many things, found such cool communities and learned a lot. And it was entertaining too, all the time. But it's time to move on and make these same experiences on a new platform, owned by the people. I'm kinda sad, but also excited for it.