First off, I want to say that I love what the people here are doing but I do have a problem. There is never any conversation about posts. There are tons and tons of links shared but most of the time they’re just articles that someone found interesting. I never see any true, meaningful discussion the way I do on reddit. Does anyone else have a problem with this or am I just shouting at the clouds? Is there anything we can do about it?
The size and biased selection of the community, as mentioned in the other comments here are the main factor. Reddit is successful for at least two very different reasons, both depending on having a lot of users.
It has an ‘entertaining’ value through various hilarious or story-telling posts, such as those of the TIFU and AMA ones. Importantly, those depend on interactions and comments and ask for them from the beginning (‘ask me anything’).
It has an ‘educational’ value, mostly supported by specialists, sometimes in very narrow fields. The ELI5 posts are particulary interesting because comments can go a long way towards explaining complex issues in mathematics, physics or biology or illuminating little known areas of human history or behaviour.
Having specialists ready to provide thorough explanations about something, celebrities doing AMAs or people ready to expose their mistakes depend on a critical mass of people having adopted a platform. Lemmy is far from being there but I think it grows, like the community using Mastodon. The situation should slowly improve.
Yeah, there’s a big need for more funny and more personal channels on Lemmy. Sometimes everything just feels so serious!