"dead" will have a different definition on lemmy as compared to reddit, because the user base is smaller here. It'll grow with time, but we who are already here can start posting and commenting to give the process a quicker start.
Not only is the user base smaller, but it is also fragmented. The individual user will need to put more effort into consolidating similar communities from different instances into their personal feed. I think there needs to be a client-side feature where a user can combine multiple communities into a single feed.