I used Reddit for years and maybe posted twice, here i just feel more compelled to participate. I find it hard to put into words, but Reddit feels like social media, which I hate, and lemmy feels more like an old school forum.
Why would more users be better? As far as I'm concerned whatever number of users are right now is the right one.
I definitely get the old school forum vibes. Reddit felt like talking into the void sometimes if a thread was popular and you weren't there from early.
It helps that our community is small enough that people are able to comment with people that they have something in common with. Compare that to Reddit when it felt like there was no meaningful conversation because there was too much of an ocean of users.