If "lemmy is developed by socialists/communists/leftists" is enough for folks to steer clear of it (or move over to kbin, as I've seen at least one radlib insist that folks do rather than lemmy), then... "task failed successfully" in my eyes. No real loss.
I feel like lurkers are not considered in the growth, the sudden user influx is something that broke the camel's back for me and made me return. But with the same influx of users there definitely was also lurkers who came over, although I guess after the blackout their numbers will dwindle the quickest, as they are more for consumption rather than propagation.
Lemmy is programmed in rust, so that means those turbolibs prefer something built in another programming language over something built in their favorite one.