Yeah, that will probably help. But I also feel like it just trying to get upvotes makes people compete to post popular but not necessarily good quality stuff. Getting a highly upvoted post is a big dopamine hit in itself.

Upvotes are not so important here, part due to no karma, but partly just because it’s quieter. Hopefully, if activity does pick up, the federated nature of Lemmy means some of that can be avoided. If you’re interested in a topic, you can choose between a very popular community on one instance, or a quieter but more thoughtful community on another instance.