Compare to Lemmy's userbase, which is anti-capitalist and clearly has a bone to pick with reddit. If I had to value Lemmy it would be for the cost of hardware and operations alone.

Which is kinda what Reddit should be valued at, because its a community oriented site, the value is never in the contributions. You can't guarantee their engagement. They can always pack up and leave. Anyone thinking there's a value in community oriented sites is being fooled.

I know people are gonna think "daaaamn, you just shit over lemmy too" but Lemmy makes no illusion of it, its a community funded effort, so the product offering is going to be suited to its audience, and this helps engagement. Reddit has no greater objective than tricking advertisers that people will visit.