[…] there was just a little more non-political content to help dilute it due to the larger user-base.

There was/is a lot more and that’s one of the various reasons the different Lemmy/Mbin/Piefed sites haven’t swayed people over yet. There’s far more people around here replying to posts like this and news posts, as well as creating news/politics/“dry” posts or find-anywhere-fare like memes/shitposts than much else.

It’s why recently I’ve tried posting more than media news links to a few of the different entertainment communities. Around here you really have to post/comment on what you want to see more than on the big corporate sites.

The lurking downvoter, more astounding when they don’t appear than when they do. 😂

Appreciate this post OP, as I’ve wondered similar at times when not wanting to fuss with another machine for self-hosting (as often it’s not the case that I could run the server software on my main system).

If there were more people across these sites, I’d definitely appreciate the Ask communities being moderated more toward their intentions, like strictly open-ended questions, and treat all questions as not being stupid for those respective communities.

However with only so many people, too heavy moderation can deter any activity, so it’s kinda tricky. 🤔