I wouldn't worry about Lemmy having as many users as reddit in the short term. Success is not just a measure of userbase. A system just needs a critical mass, a minimum number of users, to be self-perpetuating. For a reddit post that has 10k comments, most normal people only read a few dozen comments anyways. You could have half the comments on that post, and frankly the quality might go up, not down. (That said, there are many communities below that minimum critical mass at the moment.)
Lemmy is now a real alternative. When reddit imploded Lemmy wasn't fully set up to take advantage of the exodus, so a lot of users came over to the fediverse and gave up right away. There were no phone apps, the user interface was rudimentary, and communities weren't yet alive. Next time reddit screws up in a high profile way, and they will screw up, the fediverse will be ready.
Lemmy has way more potential than reddit. Reddit's leadership has always been incompetent and slow at fixing problems. The fediverse has been very responsive to user feedback in comparison.

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[–] Robaque@feddit.it 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I've been wondering if the API change was actually a move to prevent anyone but themselves from using Reddit's data to train AI.

[–] ArrrborDAY@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Likely so, though scraping will still yield the data. Maybe they will make scraping harder too.

[–] Robaque@feddit.it 2 points 1 year ago

Maybe that's why their mobile app and new website sucks lol

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That’s what I assumed from the beginning: think of the gold rush for generative ai and they are using Reddit data. Actually, it even seems fair to share in the potential (but what about the users who created it all?).

However if that was their intent, they sure screwed it up

[–] demlet@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, they specifically have said they don't want AI companies to get their user data for free. What's interesting is that we as a culture have internalized and accepted the idea that our user-made content is something only tech companies have the right to profit from and fight over.