Digg is currently allowing users to pay $5 to get in first and help test the platform.
It was created by the same people as reddit, and will ultimately suffer the same fate as reddit. It solves nothing, but users will prefer it because a smooth UX is so important, and Lemmy doesn't offer that yet.
Federated social media is much more resilient against censorship than corporately held social media.
Something that's free with zero or minimally intrusive ads is what attracts users. Moreso than UI/UX.
That's simply not true, else Mastadon wouldn't be a fraction of the size of Bluesky.
UX is everything when it comes to user adoption, most people don't care enough about other factors.