Because it's not a website. It's a connected network of sites that requires a bit of a learning curve to really use.

At this point I've probably been banned from reddit over 5 times.

Usually for sarcastic remarks.

In my experience, people will move with their interests.

I've been using reddit for probably 10-15 years. I used to send links to my wife(then girlfriend), but she never used reddit.

In the last year she made a reddit account after moving off of tiktok.

Now I'm on Lemmy pretty much full time because I prefer smaller communities and more specific topics, also less normies.

Trying to browse reddit is like talking with boomers and AI now. No thanks.

I don't know, but I like it this size. Feels homey. Except for the large communist presence.

It takes time for network effects to build up and I suspect they (the entrenched, the silos) know that

You can fuck a community and it takes years to recover

My latest complaint about Reddit: old reddit (old.reddit.com) is so broken that clicking on your inbox doesn't make the notifications go away

Endless VC hype cycle. Fuck your users, returns are all that matters

shh, popularity will make it worse

Many people stick with what they know and often won't or can't change unless forced to. Being first to market creates a persistent market majority.

Mostly because it is a pain in the ass to use.

Even Reddit wasn't "popular" on the levels that it has been for over a decade. It is more about time and people finding it like they did with early Reddit (and Digg before that). New people will come as long as they see active instances and as more helpful (or even funny) posts/comments show up in search results. Kind of like how a lot of questions in search engines will show basically the same questions being asked on Reddit. Also Lemmy is a little bit confusing to new people that aren't used to how Fediverse/Lemmyverse sites work. Not very hard, but does feel a bit overwhelming since stuff they are used to are super centralized.

For now most instances kind of feel like BBS/forums back in the 90s/00s, but with a Reddit (or similar sites) kind of layout/interaction style. Which I like since I had a lot of great times on old forums. The subs are still small enough to actually see familiar users show up and have better vibes on them. Though it does mean that new/niche subs have the chance of not getting enough people to get going, and have more people join and post new things.