I agree.

I love the idea of a decentralized network like this, but I can't help but feel like it lacks some level of transparency to how it works?

After being around here for a bit I get the idea of federation and all that, but its incredibly overwhelming when trying to create an account (Hell I still don't know if I created my Mastodon or Lemmy accounts in the right place)

I agree 100%. Reddit has honestly gotten a bit too big imo? so much promotion and noise. Lemmy on the other hand is smaller and it kinda reminds me of the reddit early days when there were articles and thoughtful posts