That’s exactly how I feel about Twitter and Facebook, so I avoid all of that. Reddit was great because there wasn’t really any benefit to getting “popular” on the platform, and Lemmy is scratching that itch for me as well.
I haven’t actually looked at Tildes seriously because when I first heard about it years ago, it just didn’t have much content and was invite only, so I bailed.
Lemmy is good enough for me, so I’m here. I could probably go through the effort of getting an account at Tildes and Lobsters, but that’s effort I should be spending not being on SM, so I just don’t bother. I go to SM to escape, and any barriers just remind me I should be doing something more productive.