Many users on Lemmy seem actively hostile to the idea of decentralization in a way that feels self defeating. They don’t want a better alternative to Reddit, they just want Reddit 2.0 and attempts to sway them towards something better feels like pulling teeth.

Yes! I don't think it bodes well for general adoption when so much of the Lemmyverse is hosted on two essentially "Reddit 2.0" (by that I mean loosely moderated) instances. Assuming half the population of the Lemmyverse are people banned from Reddit for poor socialization, it means new users considering switching are most likely to first encounter a pure concentrated form of the worst aspects of Reddit userbase.

Beehaw is the only "general" instance I know of who's mods and admins seem to be actually up to the task of keeping their communities from becoming wholly exhausting and it's because they didn't allow themselves to balloon up beyond their ability to self-moderate.