I don't know if you've noticed this, but threads or comments about Lemmy or the Fediverse get downvoted a lot on Reddit and trolls who claim that it's "dogshit" and "not going anywhere" get systematically upvoted.
Some of those trolls get then exposed when you ask them what Lemmy instance they tried and one of them with whom I had a surreal exchange answered with something like "yeah ofc I used Lemmy, this is the instance: join-lemmy.org" 🤦♂️
It's frustrating that these trolls keep contributing to the big lie that "Lemmy is not ready yet" and that there's "no viable alternative to Reddit".
This and the overwhelming number of comments being "against the mod protests" just prompts me to question whether there isn't some brigading being organized straight from the Reddit HQ.
I definitely get where you're coming from and at least you're giving alternatives a shot. Don't abandon Reddit just yet, just use both even if that means Reddit is still your main.
Unfortunately no one can compete with the big tech companies anymore both in scale and user experience. The most you can hope for is to keep alternatives afloat as a solid secondary option and hope they gradually improve. If only tech savvy people hang out here then a lot of the UI jank will go uncontested and unnoticed.