It is one of the alternatives to Reddit which emerged at the same time as Lemmy (the other one being Tildes, mentioned at the end of the post)
The message conveyed is that federation was indeed a better solution, looking at the difference in number of Discuit vs Lemmy/Mbin/Piefed
Omniraptor@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Tildes is many years old, founded by a former mod who did a lot of good work in /r/games like 12 years ago and eventually got hired by reddit, then left to start tildes.
Blaze@feddit.org 4 months ago
Indeed, but it still seems very quiet