That inability to passively keep "consuming content" is honestly a big strength of Lemmy for me. On Reddit I can sometimes get sucked in for hours on end, and I can get mentally exhausted pretty quickly but just keep scrolling for "the next thing." The fact that you can't really do that on Lemmy has made it a much healthier choice for me to spend time here, and I've only just started (kinda – it's complicated).
Interactions here feel so much more personal too, which I like. Even with all the various instances and communities, we're also all part of the same community. And that can kinda extend to the fediverse as a whole too. What we have in common is that we all want an alternative to the corporate social media landscape that gives more freedom to the users, and enables interchange between platforms to discourage monopolizing walled gardens. It really is fantastic.
Matrix is promising, but I think it still could use a bit more polish. That said, I run a discord community, and soon one of these days I'm going to make a Matrix version of it and encourage users to try it out. Though very few probably will.