Seemed like this discussion was about the technical capabilities, not the user generated content. Anyway if you compare the beginning of reddit (e.g., the early days after digg's implosion) to lemmy today, I'd bet lemmy is doing just fine on the content side too. And even leaving that aside, there's a quality over quantity aspect in the discussions that heavily leans in lemmy's favor.

TV show hasn't quite caught up to the end of the first book yet, but it's close. And I think this is actually a better end for the first season than trying to match the book.

From what I could tell the books were released somewhat piecemeal, more like a bunch of little novellas, and were compiled into the three main books later.