I know a lot of lurkers like me out there are browsing, but there’s quite a bit of engagement capitol on the federated instances. If you find an interesting topic and the right community, you get a lot of feedback. There’s not much hate being thrown out there either.
It seems to me that most posts/reposts on reddit are just for the fake internet points. But here on lemmy, people post just to keep the place active, & engage in some conversation.