To be perfectly honest, Lemmy has had staggering growth regardless of the lack of media attention. And I’m not entirely certain that’s a bad thing.
Look at my home instance of lemmy.world, for example. When I joined pre-blackout, we had around 800 members. Now, two server upgrades later, we’re at nearly 18,000. If only a fraction of those newcomers stay, it’s still enough to jumpstart organic growth, even if it’s slow. And it gives us time to really develop.
Maybe that’s a glass-half-full outlook, but I’m optimistic.