Also, one of Lemmy’s biggest benefits is the lack of centralization. Reddit’s biggest flaw is that every subreddit is hosted by the same site. That means every single subreddit is ultimately under the control of just a few admins. Federation tries to change that, by allowing virtually anyone to be an admin. If you don’t like a particular instance’s admins, you can change instances or spin up your own.

Consolidating communities totally defeats the purpose of federation. If things are consolidated on a specific instance and you don’t like that instance’s admins, you can’t just change instances. You’re locked into the instance, the same way redditors are locked into using Reddit.