Really long story, made short: Reddit API was free. They decided to charge an insane amount of money for it, and gave developers almost no notice of the changes. Most 3rd party apps were forced to shut down as a result. This meant apps for people who need accessibility features, apps that moderators depended on, etc. Reddit’s official app is a dumpster fire and offered very few much needed features.

People protested. Reddit removed moderators that protested. Many users left in response. At least one major 3rd party app switched to supporting Lemmy. A lot of users followed.

Why do you block instances? Sorry, new here