As much as it pains me, and I feel positively biased towards De Vries, I just don’t think he has what it takes. His results never came, barring his quali at Monza '22 with Willians and the points that resulted from that one race. At AT he didn’t come even close to Tsunoda, and how good Yuki really is remains to be seen imo.
I think you are correct. Lemmy is really just gearing up at the moment, but can’t handle the volume to compete with reddit.
The increase of instances, user guides, communities and third party apps are necessary building stones of a federated reddit alternative of size.