It feels like too much effort to be a very early adopter of what looks initially like an untested, and frankly empty, new system.

I saw those user counts and thought... "Maybe I can be a very early adopter, test, and add some life to this somewhat empty system in order to make it better for the next person". You're not like... wrong... about it being a lot of effort and a little creaky and a little empty. What the lemmyverse needs right now are people who are ready to fix problems and fill the empty spaces even if not many people are watching them. If someone looks at that information and it looks like too much effort to get into a place where there isn't much to see... they're probably right. It's ok for them to bounce off and check back later.

All of which is to say, lemmy isn't going to satisfy someone who is acclimated to a millions-strong user community. The chants on reddit suggesting "let's all switch to lemmy", aren't realistic today. I don't see the value in trying to hide that fact until after they complete account signup... they're going to find out when they sign in. What could be possible is a cycle where some redditors who are willing to try to build communities from scratch start spending time here and slowly... over time... make it a place that's interesting to more folks. But the idea of an overnight switch is a fantasy. Lemmy isn't reddit and isn't going to become it next week.

if Lemmy isn’t ready to grow more than 10x in the next month, then people should stop directing redditors here. A lot of people are looking for somewhere to go right now.

Yeah, this is probably true. I came from reddit recently, but I came here to do some work to build the place into something interesting. I didn't expect /r/all to be here waiting for me on day one. Take it up with the people making those recommendations though, they're not in this thread.