I first joined Lemmy back during the big Reddit exodus of last year. I like many others wanted an alternative to Reddit, and I thought that this might’ve been the one. I made two accounts, one on lemmy.world and another on sh.itjust.works, in the June of last year that I used on and off for about 4 months.
At first Lemmy was exciting because it was so active. There were so many new users who were enthusiastic about turning this platform into a genuine alternative. There was a communal effort to create and interact with content, and for awhile it worked. Lemmy was truly interesting during the summer of last year. However, this stream of dedicated users started to slowly decline.
A lot of people hoped that if they were active, they would attract and retain more users to this place to the point where the community would foster interest specific communities like Reddit, but that never happened. After a few months, a lot of users lost interest and went back to Reddit where the userbase is so massive that there is an active community for just about anything.
With this reverse exodus back to Reddit, Lemmy ended up with the same groups that were active on it before hand: political extremists, tech nerds, privacy enthusiasts, and shitposters. To be fair, all these groups are larger now than they were a year ago, but that’s all this platform has to offer. If you’re into any of these things and primarly these things then Lemmy can be a good alternative to Reddit, but for the general masses? Lemmy is just not good.
For example, a NBA post on the NBA subreddit can get you thousands of interactions in a couple of hours. An NBA post on here will maybe get you a dozen over the course of a couple of days. The only content that will gain any traction here are tech news, political propaganda, and maybe some memes. I don’t see this changing any time soon. Even if Reddit implodes, I still think Lemmy will remain a niche platform. I think this evident by the fact that this platform hasn’t really progressed in a year.
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You might be right, Lemmy is not for the masses… I would consider myself a tech nerd, privacy enthusiast and shitposter; so migrating from Reddit was the best thing to ever happen to me. This place feels like a real home where I can share my interests with people who are incredibly helpful, kind and passionate about what they do. This place is a heaven for people trying to escape corporate and mass media. And I agree with you, Lemmy is a failed Reddit alternative, because it’s not a Reddit alternative, I don’t see it like that anymore. People here are genuine, I love that <3
Not a tech nerd or privacy enthusiast -just an old mom who occasionally shitcomments. I like it here.
Exactly. On Reddit you get roasted for asking a simple question like wtf. Lemmy is the way.
Oh so you’re saying all Reddit users literally eat babies?
/s. The vitriol on that site was just exhausting.
Meh, it works for me. I like it here more than reddit. Sorry that you haven’t found your groove. It toom me a while of finding the right things to subscribe and right folks to follow before my feed felt fun and interesting. I use Lemmy as a jumping off point for rabbit holes that are interesting to me
I’ve been noticing a lot of Reddit’s undesirables making their way over here. Same whiny little shits whose only purpose in life is to be trolls.
Thankfully they’re super easy to spot and block.
Then getting mad when we call them out on their trolling
But why do you care about engagement with your online posts? Is your opinion that important? Or is it just your need for external validation from the faceless masses?
Either way, some introspection may be good here.
Or, ya know, just go back to reddit, whatever dude.
I mean… People come to social media to, you know… Socialize. I don’t post shit and just want upvotes. I wanna talk to people about whatever the post is about.
OP’s wording is very… Seeking when they talk about posting ‘get[ting] you thousands of interactions’.
You think they’re replying to those ‘thousands’ of people? No. They’re getting thousands of up votes, and that’s what they’re missing on lemmy.
The whole point of social media is to interact with others… I don’t understand what you’re point is here. You just seem mad because I said something you don’t like.
Well, you’re here, yelling into what you seem to consider an ‘empty void’.
Why?
Also, your *
I am part of the Reddit exodus. I’m here because I have no interest in promoting or supporting the atrocious policies that now govern Reddit.
The pace here is different, but the interactions feel more measured.
Based on being online since 1990, I’m comfortable with being an “early adopter”, even though I’ve only been here for a few months and Lemmy is five years old.
Will Lemmy survive? Who knows. The horse and buggy didn’t, neither did Yahoo!, MySpace or Google+, but here we are nonetheless.
I like it here.
I mean good for you, I’m glad you’re happy here. But here’s a question for you, do you honestly think that this platform has the potential to be more than what it is currently? Platforms come and go, true, but it’s very rare for a platform to actually appeal to the general masses. MySpace at its peak had 90 million active users, Google+ had 200 million users, Yahoo still has around 700 million people use its services. While these sites ended up being failures, they still reached mainstream status. I don’t think Lemmy will die, but I don’t see it becoming a mainstream alternative to Reddit. I see it as an upgraded version of Voat. It’s a platform that will remain niche unless something drastic changes.
I think that the missing link for the fediverse is the user interface that most users see.
This is oxymoronic given that the original Reddit looks eerily similar to Lemmy today, but it’s not just looks I’m talking about.
Moderation and usability tools, bots, blocks, filtering and spam control need to go through several iterations before we can actually grow this community.
Search is another issue, as is post deletion. Right now a post vanishes, but all the stuff hanging off it is still there. This makes for a complex user experience.
Finally, Lemmy appears to be run by developers who appear to be interested in their own issues and regularly appear to dismiss issues raised by users. This is not sustainable.
I consider myself a user of the fediverse before I’m a Lemmy or Mastodon user. We have a way to go before this settles down.
Who cares? Lemmy is literally beta software and it isn’t corporate growth driven social media. Also it doesn’t have to replace anything. I use a lot of apps. I use both Lemmy and Reddit and always have. I have Instagram too, I also use both Twitter and Mastodon. I have Signal, Snapchat, Linkedin and Nextdoor.I like Lemmy, it is different than Reddit and that is fine. I like it better and have my own server.
Right? Failed by who’s standards? For me, I’m pretty goddang happy here. I get enough content, I don’t feel constantly anxious or angry, the people are generally pretty nice. Is OP deciding it failed? Or are others?
I now turn to Lemmy daily. It is anything but failed.
Lemmy wasn’t ready and still mostly not ready for a mass Reddit exodus. The Reddit API fiasco wasn’t anticipated by anybody and the large influx of users exposed a ton of bugs and federation issues.
But it’s not a failure, yet. I’m sure Reddit had growing pains after the Digg exodus too. Some platforms take years to become popular. Reddit was small for quite a while before it became more mainstream.
In a way to me Lemmy feels a bit like Reddit must have been a few years before I joined it 12 years ago.
The problem is the expectation that Lemmy could replace Reddit overnight, and would immediately be a 1:1 replacement.
Although personally I like it more here, and I get more interactions than Reddit. But I am a tech nerd, so.
I was on reddit slightly before subreddits were added as functionality, so 16ish years, and lemmy to me just feels like that 2008ish reddit except most of the userbase is 40 instead of 18
Change is not easy, it takes time and people willing to help foster that new change.
I am one of those people that is really into politics, but I try to interact with other communities once in a while!
It is an election year, so politics is always in an all time high on any forums and social media.
I suggest, if you are willing, to step up your game and be really active in the communites you would like to see flourish.
It may be lonely, but it tends to be when starting new things!
We are all trying the best we can, when we can, I give props to the lemmyverse and fediverse for all they do!
Thanks for posting, even if you used a burner account!
That’s kind of the point that I was making. This platform has little to offer outside a outside of politics, tech, and shitposting. Most of the active users are here for these specific topics, which is fine, but this places Lemmy as a niche platform not one that appeals the masses. A few dedicated people can’t foster a genuine community out of sheer enthusiasm. If that was the case then Lemmy would’ve regressed after the influx of last summer. You could be right, maybe people like you will lead this platform to grow into something more in a few years. I just don’t personally see that happening.
Thanks for clarifying and going further into explaining your views to us!
Some people can be seen as being a dreamer[1], I see myself as such a person, I try to stay hopeful, I see it as a much more positive way of living in the world; as well as much healthier for our mental health
Lemmy as a niche platform not one that appeals the masses
Yes, Lemmy is currently a niche platform, but that is how many start off, it takes time and much effort to grow a community.
It is similar to grassroots movements, where people that are leaders or learn to become one are willing to speak with anyone for a cause they feel strongly about, and they start to grow slowly.
I see lemmy in that phase or light, where most activity will be from people that are willing to throw themselves out there and share their favorite hobbies and put in the energy to interact with strangers (whether it may be apositive or negative interaction is another thing).
It takes time for people to come out of their shells and to start being active on forums as well, hopefully in Lemmy we give people that opportunity to grow as people and to take chances to meet and discuss any topic with strangers.
A few dedicated people can’t foster a genuine community out of sheer enthusiasm.
Well, it takes a few to start something new, in my eyes all important causes and projects start with a few people just having fun or putting the time to create something new.
To accomplish anything in life, it will take time and a lot of energy and people willing to do that.
I just don’t personally see that happening.
It is okay to see the world in that way, but just putting a bit of effort into sharing or creating a community that you like, will help improve the community.
Activity would increase, if you create a community or decide to share more of your hobbies and opinions within those communities.
If the communities would be liked by Lemmurs or not, it is another matter, but in the end of the day we all have our own way of seeing the world and we can have discussions with people that are willing to share their views as well.
The only way we can continue to grow as people, is by forcing ourselves to push against our own bias and to keep talking with people that do not think or agree with what we have to say.
[1] Supertramp - Dreamer [03:31] https://youtu.be/B885n08hOmw
Much text to read, here is a Lemmur for a fun pic:
I feel the exact opposite.
Lemmy is great because the sports guys and other normies aren’t here.
What you should have posted was nothing.
I don’t think it is failed. It has reached self-sustaining levels for many topics. It will need further growth to make smaller, niche topics self-sustaining. Whether this growth will take place is an open question. I know my instance is growing in terms of activity, but I’m not sure how others are faring.
But as long as it isn’t shrinking, I think it’s well-positioned to absorb more growth as users discover it or become disillusioned with Reddit or other sites in the future.
I think a big issue with Lemmy is that I think there’s a lot of people who become disillusioned with it, just like how a lot of users became disillusioned with Reddit. When users join this site, they’ll immediately notice that there’s nothing outside of extremist politics, privacy focused tech talk, and shitposting. Unless they’re interested in those topics specifically, a lot of people would rather either just go back to Reddit where there are active communities outside of these topics or find another, more active platform. A lot of people thought that Voat was going to rival Reddit when launched, but it ended up being a niche hub for extremist politics, tech talk, and shitposting until it shutdown. Now Lemmy is definitely better than Voat in every aspect, but I’m not sure how it can over come that big hump that will allow to appeal to general public
There’s also the problem that sadly Lemmy is filled with vocal users with skewed view of the world, and they tend to be extreme polarizing. The “if you’re not one of us, who firmly believes the world should work a certain way, and if you’re not willing to shoot yourself in the foot with a shotgun to prove it as a point, then you’re one of them; you should get the eff off of Lemmy and crawl back to Reddit” kind of way. They’re so scared of losing that pedestal that they’re going to go out of their way to alienate anyone who doesn’t drink their koolaid and push them off the platform so they can remain dominant. Sadly, these people also never really learned much of the real world, so those that are more experienced / educated gets pushed off the platform, and we end up with a bunch of weird superstonk culty kind of vibe everywhere.
I find myself more and more just make a comment and don’t look back. It’s quite literally futile and pointless trying to expect any discussion of any actual sustenance. You wonder why it’s just shitposting… well this is why.
This is a screenshot of the activity in this community. It looks ok to me…
I kinda wish they had posts/comments per day included. Users per day doesn’t mean much; feels like it just counts views that had no interaction as I can see with a couple communities I moderate that get ~100 users a day, but nothing is being voted on, posted or commented.
ROFL….
Lemmy is missing:
- Bots
- Karma farmers
- Ads
- Insane mods
- Fucking Spez
You know you’re right, we’re nothing like reddit!!
I mean Lemmy shares a lot of the same issues as Reddit even if it’s decentralized. I think Lemmy as a technology is better than Reddit because it’s more privacy focused, but most people don’t care about any of this. People put up with Reddit’s shortcomings because it has a massive community that is always active and fills every niche. Reddit’s daily active userbase is over 73 million. That’s hard to replicate in general, but I don’t see Lemmy getting anywhere near that mainstream. I see it as a more stable and active version of Voat, but still a niche platform nonetheless.
It is probably best to think nothing on Lemmy is private. Any instance with at least one user subscribed to a community will receive updates (messages and votes) on the community. Instance admin can go into the database to see any private message between any user on that instance.
Lol dude got the exact things wrong about Lemmy - clear they haven’t spent much time here. Fediverse is NOT privacy focused, in fact it’s the opposite. You blast your content out to everyone. The only privacy is your username, and that aint much. It’s user owned, that’s the saving grace, that corporate doesn’t own it. We sacrifice fake corporate privacy for open standards.
Reddit didn’t get to 73 million overnight. It took them decades. Lemmy only gets 1 year?
Also, 73 million seems exaggerated, or that’s counting the bots
Niche <> bad.
It’s not bad, but niche is just that. For a platform to become a genuine alternative to Reddit, it needs to appeal to the mainstream.
You do realize that’s why Reddit went down the shitter right? Appealing to the mainstream is literally what got us to the point that everything is filled with ads and misinformation.
Actually I have heard of some insane mods
Fucking gallowboob, is he still a thing?
