The network effect. It’s big enough that small forums get enough posts to stay active which keeps more people using it.
For example Lemmy has a 3d printer forum that has a few posts a week. Reddit has forums not just for 3d printing but for every specific model of printer and each gets a much activity as Lemmy’s generic forum.
If I’m searching for something, Google will show Reddit content but not Lemmy because there isn’t an answer on Lemmy.







I believe the problem is developers, not the language. The problem is developers importing node.js and other giant frameworks for a simple function. That’s not a language problem. Bad coders are going to cause the same problems in any language.
The same problem exists in C when a simple Windows app requires a separate install of the vcruntine140.dll. Java also has enormous libraries that programmers abuse because they are cutting and pasting codestack they don’t understand.