The honest answer usually isn’t what people want to hear.
Many people come to Lemmy thinking they can maintain whatever their habits were on reddit. For most people that means lurking and voting, not much else. Lemmy isn’t really big enough yet for that to work unless you’re only interested in the dominant topics here like linux and star trek, so people quickly get discouraged because Lemmy is “empty.” As if every social media site hasn’t started the same way…
For many/most of us the communities we were used to loitering in on reddit don’t exsist or aren’t active enough to lurk in without getting bored. That means we need to shift towards content generation/creation/sharing rather than just consumption. Not everyone is going to be comfortable doing that. It also isn’t going to happen over night.
The only way Lemmy will grow and become what you/we want it to be is by sticking around and participating. For many of us that means doing different things than we were used to on reddit. Lemmy is still very much in the early stages of it’s development and culture and it’s up to the users to decide what kind of place it’s going to be. It takes time and effort, and understanding that Lemmy is not and will never be reddit.
If people want reddit, it’s still there for them. Lemmy is still forming an identity and we’re all a part of it.
My personal favorite is Boost but it hasn’t seen an update in quite awhile. Thunder is the leading contender to replace Boost if it doesn’t update soon. Thunder is seeing very active development and has a ton of customization options to suit your needs. There are several options out there now though. Probably worth trying them all.