Mastodon has went through a similar bump, but more recently has had some larger figures begin usage (local government broadcasts, b-level ‘thought-leaders’/‘influencers’, etc). In order to get to the next level, lemmy needs to show it can survive test of time and is worth the effort to establish an online profile. For example, reddit has corporate organizations creating and maintaining subreddits which act as an avenue for community engagement. Having active community engagement leads to advertisement, which can be a double edged sword, but useful if pursuing ‘growth’ metrics. I’m not sure what the lemmy devs (or it’s users) have planned for this.