Right now, Lemmy seems very tech-focused - which is understandable, as it's mostly tech geeks that use this platform. I'd like to see a wider variety of interests here, more things outside of technology/Linux/Star Trek/etc.
If we want Lemmy to become more popular, we need to appeal to the mainstream Internet users.
As Lemmy becomes more popular it will drift from being so tech focused.
Many popular sites gradually drifted off of tech focus as their user base grew. R*ddit is a prime example of how a very nerdy niche site grew and shifted to be popular (sorta) organically.
I do think that for all the hullabaloo about Ellen Pao and banning a bunch of subreddits - that actually did more to open the place up to users who were otherwise driven away by /r/FatPeopleHate and /r/Jailbait being on the front page all the time.
If Lemmy were to change to attract users it would likely be from increased defederation with instances that are less palatable to mainstream society.
If we want Lemmy to become more popular, we need to appeal to the mainstream Internet users.
I was thinking about it the other day, I feel like the vast majority of Internet users are now on Facebook/Instagram/Tiktok/Twitter/Discord depending on their age and demographics.
Text-based forums are probably not appealing to most of them