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That's a great example of "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product". Reddit is transparently associating changes in the privacy policy with Reddit Pro, that calls itself a suite of tools "for businesses to also establish and grow a meaningful organic presence on Reddit" (translation: so corporations can astroturf the shit out of local communities).
Is lemmy an exception to the rule?
Kind of.
That saying (I wouldn't call it a "rule") applies mostly to for-profit products and services; like, if they're doing it for the money, and you aren't giving them money directly, you're doing it indirectly, and you should find how. Lemmy instances on the other hand are [mostly? all?] non-profit, it's just a bunch of users trying to nurture communities to talk about stuff that they enjoy.
I mean, the fact that it’s literally FOSS that’s run and hosted by users or groups of users kinda takes the corporate angle all the way out of it. Sure, some will try (threads, etc), but who wants to federate fucking ads?