I think how you see it is that on reddit, some communities require karma (points) and/or age to interact with the community. On both sites, it’s self-governing, like how most bots and trolls get downvoted to hell, and whether you should interact or take them seriously, stuff like that. I can’t say anything much about lemmy, since I’m also new to it, but it’s a way of self-governing… the algorithms also use votes to sort what gets shown at the top and bottom of a page and anywhere in between.

I’m currently on lemmy.ml and I’m relatively new, so remember other instances may be different, and take what I say with a grain of salt, because I’m new.

Have a great day and be kind! :D