Lemmy will grow, but for right now it does not meet every need. Perhaps it never will. Especially with lives and livelihoods on the line, you must do whatever works best for you, so please do not feel guilty.

Relatively new Lemmy user here, longtime reddit user. I saw a comment last week that sums this up. Lemmy just hasn't yet reached the critical mass to have spawned the niche groups that reddit has; certainly not with the activity they have.

I suspect that, for a while, many of us will keep one foot in reddit for those niche communities. In the meantine, we can try to foster similar commities in Lemmy.

I'll tell you my approach and you can use it for inspiration, but keep in mind everyone is different.

I deleted the Reddit app, but still use Reddit sometimes through the browser. This caused me to use Reddit far less, and primarily use lemmy unless what I need is not found on lemmy.

Sometimes what I need is info from a specific community like you mentioned. For example, I am Arab, and there's very few Arabs on lemmy.

In your case, Reddit might be less rare than me. It might be more practical for you to use both apps, or maybe just not use lemmy at all. It all depends on your priorities and what you're looking for.

Well, there's Libreddit. If you absolutely must browse reddit, consider using Libreddit instead. No interactions though (there's lemmy for that :p).

That is all fair. My take is to lurk on Reddit and post as little as possible without logging in (and using alternative front ends like Libreddit or Stealth when you can). If you need to post, either because you need a quick answer to a question or want to help out someone with a question, do it, but consider posting the content to related communities on federated platforms as much as possible.

The centralized internet is only now being more widely criticized by ...well, not the mainstream, but certainly more people as of late, and continuing to put more and more content onto federated platforms, while putting less and less content onto centralized ones is needed to help balance the scales against the tech giants.

TLDR; Do what you can to stay off of Reddit. Lurk on alternative front ends, and when you do post, consider posting in similar fediverse communities. Try to migrate onto more federated platforms as big tech be evil.

Lemmy just doesn't have a large enough userbase for those niche communities yet. Of course you're still gonna need reddit if you need those specific communities lol

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If reddit provides value to you, extract that shit. That's what it's doing to its users after all.

If you need information that are only discussed in Reddit, why are you here in the first place? You tried to escape from Spez, right? If you really are concerned anout the governance of Reddit, stay here and invite Redditors here so population here will be larger, but if you’re not, go back to Reddit for bigger community.

nobody's judging, I sometimes shamelessly click on some reddit links in google results, I just try to not interact, i don't think it's a shame to use reddit if lemmy doesn't suit your needs, i mean there's your validation if you need it, it's your life

No you probably still need reddit. It's OK. :)

You seem like a critical thinker. I like to think I am but who the fuck knows.

Do you need a critically acclaimed response or one you know to be true?

I can't imagine why anyone should stop you from going the places you want to go for advice. I know Lemmy frowns upon even Reddit chain linking, but don't factor that in too much, such things aren't even against Lemmy rules. Keep us updated too if you may, we're sorry this is an issue in your hospital.

You're not wrong. Why would you? Either works or not. You said it yourself, it's work-related. The rest you could probably work around them if sufficiently motivated.

Nobody is making you leave Reddit.

Like if you need it, for the communities, then you need it and should use it.

I like to think I’m self aware enough to not expect everybody to be the same. I am happy to forgo Reddit on principles and will take whatever headaches come from that choice. Similar to how I won’t buy from Amazon or I’ll not buy a Quest 3 as I don’t want to buy from FB.