This is the right way to think of it. Reddit feels dirty because they were a private company and we trusted them in the walled garden. That trust was naiive at least on my part, but it was 14ish years ago I had joined and they never did wrong, until recently.

Lemmy, however, is a public protocol. From the ground up everything is public. There is no illusion of privacy here, and anyone who thinks there is should forget about it. The protocol is by definition public, and will launch any comment/post across the globe to anyone listening. It’s nailing the paper to the door for everyone to see. To me this is okay though, because I know that going in. The tradeoff is less privacy, but it’s an open platform that no one can take away.