This isn't my experience at all. Mastodon feels more or less exactly like Twitter-circa 2022 to me (just with fewer right-wing trolls) - still fun and vibrant and also informative.
Lemmy feels like a collection of weird freaks trying desperately to be cool. And don't get me wrong, I'm one of them. But I would not call the vibe here "vibrant, active, lighthearted, fun" or certainly "powerful."
That's... not what's happening at all. Developers of apps in the EU can keep the same old terms, the same terms they've always had any the US still has. They have to opt-in to the new terms, which incurs the CTF. Its not mandatory.