Right now, unless someone is linked to an instance directly, the first point of entry is usually join-lemmy.org, and let's face it, it's completely uninviting.
The first few screenshots give off a Rust nerd vibe, and you have a "join a server" button shown to you before you even get to see some short explanation of how the Fediverse works.
In contrast, https://matrix.org/ and https://joinmastodon.org/ (which btw also has this "join a server" shown too early problem, but they kind of go around it by linking a default instance) feel much more welcoming.
Maybe we could have a contest to make join-lemmy.org better? Not just the layout, the wording is also way too technical for the most part and deserves to be reviewed by people with more of a marketing mindset.
We could also have a similar one to make a short introductory video, like what was done by Framasoft (a French non-profit) in this video: https://peertube.fr/w/9dRFC6Ya11NCVeYKn8ZhiD (or probably just reuse that video if there's not enough interest in making a similar Lemmy-focused one?)
Would be really cool to have creative people contribute that way to Lemmy without necessarily coding!
Not sure trying to attract people and lowering barriers to entry is the best thing to do at this point. We'll have the same dearth of quality content and more n00bs to get bored and post memes.
The slow, hard road is the way. Post stuff. High effort stuff. Respond, don't just upvote. Make this place worth signing up for.