'karma' has the same use here just as in reddit imo. it buries your post/comment but it is not as amplified as on reddit only because of the rate of new content made in lemmy. And when the mods get tired of modding in the future they would just bot it based on ... votes.
iirc someone already made a moderation bot for that.
I do not hate the concept of lemmy and the fediverse, But I'm also not going to pretend that lemmy at its current state isn't a circle jerk. Lemmy needs more diverse groups of people. Like GrammerPolice said above, most people who migrated from reddit were people with very strong stance on their opinions. And there's intense hostility to anything that is even slightly against what they believe in.
Find me easier to access niche communities
Have fun trying to discuss anything that isn't about linux, american politics or reddit/amazon/elon bad!!. Lemmy is just a decentralized circle jerk.
80% of porn in porn subs if you sort by top all time