One common problem for fediverse is that most of them are Western-oriented, hard to find people with similar interest and common topics.

Lemmy so far is replicating Reddit, which is tend to one-size-fit-all community. Gaming community? c/gaming is de-facto. Linux community? c/Linux is de-facto. And so on. Sure there are other server, but the one with most active community wins.

I usually use Facebook Groups with hundreds of thousands of people. It’s nice to see groups of really small niche, like “local fried chicken seller,” “temple research South East Asia,” or “Singapore-only comic collector”, etc.

There are plenty groups with similar topic, but entirely different culture. For example general gaming group:

1. Gaming group which predominantly SEA people where mobile gaming is common.
2. Gaming group with mainly Western people where mobile gaming is considered lesser form of gaming.
3. Gaming group with audience where anime-manga-tokusatsu and other Japanese pop culture are mainstream. (Taiwanese, Indonesian, Korean, etc)

Another example, healthy food groups.

1. Healthy food groups with people from area where vegan food is common without labeling (e.g. India, Indonesia, Myanmar, East Timor).
2. Healhy food groups with predominantly Westerner that try to replace all food to vegan food.
3. Healhy food groups that revolves around local food, which its recipe are only suitable for certain region.

All these communities might be same, but the entire vibe are different. One might more welcoming, other are full or rough jokes, some are okay with multilanguge post (not English only community).

Unless fediverse is able to replicate this, I don’t think it will reach full mainstream, especailly for people in Africa, Middle East, or Asia.