Maybe. Pre-centralization, it was very similar - forum boards run by different people on different servers. A system like Lemmy is basically the same but without the inconvenience of having to make a new account every time, which should make it more accessible in the long run.

What it would need in addition to that is discoverability - if just a few major instances show up high enough in major search engines results it’ll be a huge draw. Right now discoverability is kind of abysmal, which worries me a little, but I know people are working on solutions.

Imo what we regular users can do right now that will have an impact is contribute to communities and keep them active, and encourage reddit-based communities to switch over. If we all can prove that this is an effective way to run communities, the people will come.

It’s not about what company has the best system and most control, it’s about what we as groups of people with shared interests gravitate towards. Lemmy fixes some barriers to running forums and might enable more individuals and small groups to start running their own servers again.