I might be alone in this, but everyone always talks shit about recommendations or "the algorithm" on a lot of platforms. It's really important though. There's a difference in usability if you see what you like really quick. If you want to make sure ppl don't get it if they don't need it, make it a new tab.
I really think Lemmy is great and it's potential is even greater, but users and ease of use are the bottleneck rn, and that goes for every aspect of it.
Lemmy of all platforms is able to work fine without an algorithm. There needs to be some better sorting options, though. 'Hot' prioritizes new posts way too much, so you don't even see posts that are 2 hours old.
Also some way of making posts from smaller communities show up higher since they'll never get as many upvotes as posts from popular communities.
I don't mind algorithm feeds as long as it's not the default view and as long as it's not mingled with the normal feed. Reddit is an example of the latter case. They mix "promoted" content as well as "you visited a subreddit once so we think you'll like this post" content along with posts from subreddits you subscribe to. I find that annoying.
So I wouldn't mind if Lemmy had an algorithm to recommend posts as long as it was in a "recommended posts" section. Then people who want it could click over to it and people who don't like that could just ignore it.