If a billionaire (or a very big bunch of millionaires) out of the goodness of their heart (yeah, not gonna happen) threw a massive amount of money into advertising for a open source product they dont own, Lemmy could be as or more popular. Even if it has fewer features. Even if its uglier. Even if its more complicated.
I can’t count the many times I’ve seen the worser product has won out because it had big corpo ad budget. Turned me a bit cynical.