Lemmy is like a public library of the internet: it's one of the few places where you can exist without the expectation of paying either through watching ads or through direct payments
I just need a place to shitpost for stress relief, I get drawn into deeper discussions but my main goal is to be as thoughtless and as dumb as possible Wheeeeeeeee
Don't know where I read it, but I also like this metaphorical comparison:
Traditional social media is like a shop, except the customers are advertisers and you, as a user sit on the shelves, waiting to be bought. It's made entirely for revenue and profit, everything else is secondary. The shop will gladly show you an advertiser that pays for your attention before showing you your parent's vacation photos or the important post from that group you follow.
A fediverse instance is like a community garden. Nobody is a product and nobody is buying anything for themselves. Instead, everyone grows the garden together. Some people took initiative and responsibility with running the garden (admins/mods) and others joined and shared the garden with them and supported the garden with funds and content.
In the fediverse garden, there is no other point than talking amongst each other and the garden is connected to other gardens that work mostly with the same principles and the gardens "cross-polinate" each other with discussions and content and through that help each other grow even more.
Of course, people should donate to make Lemmy sustainable.
I recognize that this is true of any website that is not enshitified or, more broadly, is designed to maximize profits. Websites made with libre software are the public libraries of the internet!