Post what you want, comment on everything, make your own community, etc etc etc

I see this all the time like some kind of catch-all for complaints about how effectively dead this platform is.

Not everyone is cutout to pioneer any kind of community, let’s just assume that OP takes this advice to heart, if their interest/hobby is niche enough, what’s even the likelihood of someone else tumbling upon it? Let alone contributing. Maybe this hypothetical other person wants to contribute but they see that it’s only one other person posting anything and they figure, “what’s the point?” Maybe they don’t agree with OP’s opinions and would rather find another “community” where their opinions won’t be contested even if it doesn’t exist. There are a myriad of reasons why, this is going to happen with every channel, fandom, interest group, etc. it’s a natural part of the process. The problem lies in the simple fact that there’s fucking no one here, there are enough bodies to come and stay and go and continue the cycle until a community is established.

Yes, there are plenty of channels or w/e they’re called here, but most of them are effectively islands in a sea of shit you don’t care about (or bots.) They’re not managed, and there’s nothing going on in them. Why is it up to you the user to stop what you’re doing and make something out of nothing? When there are already communities that do exist on other platforms, even if said platforms are trash like Reddit or Xitter are. The majority of users in large communities are lurkers, they might not actively contribute, but they do share content with their own friends or interest groups and that is what’s more likely to bring people in, those people might be people that do end up contributing, or they might be more lurkers. But it feeds into the growth of the community either way.

Most of Lemmy doesn’t have any of that though, because there’s no one here.