It became the only reliable source of information I had. People posted links with a minimal amount of commentary, picking and choosing the best content from other social media networks. They’re not doing it to “build a brand” because that’s not a thing in the Fediverse. It’s too disjointed to be a place to build a newsletter subscription base.
The whole “look” of lemmy seems to be an homage to reddit but the hate levels are really dialed down here and there seems to be more reasonable people.