I think having the defaults set to global instead of local when searching will make it easier for new users to find communities and only show a few lemmy instances that are good to show for new users, the biggest complaint is that lemmy ( and all federated services ) are too complicated trying to find a instance.

I think there is, and that is just do stuff! Upvote, comment, engage, submit posts. Obviously helping confused individuals directly if you see them also helps, but simply using the service and engaging with it will ensure that more people join, and stick around when they see something worth returning for.

Most of the tech users that ditched Twitter for Mastadon when 3rd party apps were killed actually stayed, and still engage with that service. The other communities I followed on Twitter didn’t, and that’s because they joined a ghost town when it came to their interests. Lemmy is far behind where Mastadon was then in terms of overall capability and client options, so this is a big hurdle to overcome. Everyone has a part to play :)

Other than creating content and interactions, one thing I've been trying to do is make sure to search up and federate any cool new remote communities I come across, even if they're not something I care to subscribe to myself.

In theory that makes it slightly easier for other people joining my instance to find things when they search, because I feel like the weird "search and get no results but then wait 15 seconds and it'll change to pull results" behaviour is a major source of confusion for new people atm.

One thing that will likely be a huge dealbreaker is the spam-stopping wait period that many instances are using, but this could be getting used to drive new users to low-sub instances. While the tactic is understandable, many will likely be turned off by it.

Personally, I think the learning curve is part of wanting to use Lemmy, and even Linux has been abstracted enough that it can be used by just about anyone now.