I’ve been on Beehaw and Lemmy.world for the past two weeks now and while people seem to be posting content that isn’t about Reddit or Twitter or how great federated platforms are, such content does not receive as many comments/discussion as topics about the Reddit API controversy, or the current Twitter controversy, etc.
I prefer to sort by “new” when on the main page of either Beehaw or Lemmy.world. Most posts scarcely get a few upvotes and almost no comments. Without comments, I feel far less inclined to leave a comment unless there’s a discussion already going on.
It feels like the gravity of discussion is still mostly centered on complaints and discussion about Reddit (or Big Tech in general), despite this platform being billed as a Reddit replacement. Hopefully that changes with time but there’s a reason I haven’t left Reddit yet.
I started !workreform@lemmy.world about 2 weeks ago, and now it has an estimated 3.4-4k subscribers (depending on how the subscriber statistics work) and people are posting stuff.
It takes time, and it takes some effort on the part of the creator.
But you’re right, some communities will grow faster than others. I think there’s a balance between creating communities that are too broad vs super-specific communities for now!