Ones like Lemmy fit in fine to my threat model. They enable me to use privacy tools up-to-and-including Tor routing, without a phone number or other personally identifying info (you can’t do those with many other social media platforms). I can use the Fediverse pseudonymously, and if I ever want to, anonymously.
I’m not hiding this conversation from you, but I am hiding my identity from companies.
Privacy-focused isn’t a term I’d choose, but it certainly allows privacy-concerned people to use it, and like you said, avoiding the capitalist surveillance crap that for-profit companies are pulling.