Meta deliberately provokes that kind of stuff since rage baiting is good for engagement. They've cultivated and minmaxed that kind of behaviour for years. I'm sure it exists in small pockets here already, but nowhere near the same level.
Do you honestly think only the positive, friendly people would hop over? The entire fediverse will be overrun by crazy political conspiracy theories and hostile homophobic/transphobic/anti abortion stuff in no time.
Lemmy doesn't need to be #1 in popularity. I'd prefer it to split and maintain a higher level of quality, even if it's smaller as a result. Even if Meta can grab data either way, it should be disconnected on principle.
A lot of communities these days have moved over to Discord too, meaning information isn't archived or easy to access months/years later. There have been cases of accounts being compromised or rogue mods causing trouble, and in a few seconds a server's chat history and all associated info/guides/artwork etc are lost in seconds. I'd love to see a return to forums.
IMO it doesn't need to replace Reddit for everyone or grow to be a direct competitor. As long as there are enough users to keep communities active and discussions going, it's a nice alternative for people who want to get away from Reddit or other social media sites. I like that threads are active for longer than a few hours before dropping off, and since posts are slower I don't find myself mindlessly scrolling. Lemmy feels more like a mid 2000s forum but with better usability.
Every year became a competition, and it was unsustainable. Companies could spend millions on their presentation only to "lose" and get their reveals drowned out because Sony announced FF7 or Microsoft got Elder Scrolls etc. On all sides there was a rush to be the winner of the year, and it led to more and more CGI trailers of things 5+ years away just for the big reveal moment. I imagine both Sony and Microsoft would prefer to announce individual games as they come throughout the year, so their reveal is the only big gaming news of the week and everyone is talking about it.