Don’t quote me on this, but I’ve read lemmy is a few years old already while kbin is just a few months old (3-4 mos?). Add the number of instances (i only know of 3 kbin instances) and you can see why it didn’t take off the way lemmy did.
I agree. Purely text-based sites need a certain kind of audience/users. I love a good discussion/debate, but I need my memes, too. Lol.