Even googling “Lemmy” doesn’t bring up useful results.

It's not helped by the fact that it has the same name as a famous musician. Googling for Lemmy just brings him up — the Fediverse doesn't show up unless you scroll down a ways, if it even shows on the front page at all. Same with Tildes and Squabbles, both being already existing words. Branding is important for recognizability, and "Reddit" has the advantage of being a unique name.

I'm not discounting the possibility that spez himself is also evil — he's certainly done enough shady shit. He was once a mod of r/jailbait, after all, and he (or Reddit staff) had given one of the sub's founders a "Pimp Daddy" badge.

Well, I hope that analogy isn't very accurate since the "new experience" those lemmings were pushed into didn't end well for the poor wee creatures.