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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Studies find that the vast majority of users on a platform are passive participants, the vast majority only look, a smaller group looks and comments and finally an even smaller group looks, comment and post. The key to growing any community is to find or be an active poster. It’s also an investment, if you post and get only 1 to 2 reactions, that’s okay, it takes time. It also means that more people see it and didn’t react.
In your example the NBA sub, I am on it and comment from time to time, but don’t have the sources or time to post, but if someone took, at least, the links from reddit and posted them here, it’s a start. I know NBA reddit has a lot of good discussions which you can’t replicate here without more people, but the posting of articles and links is a start.
I’m actually glad I’m not that active on the platform (or any platform for that matter, federated or not), so I can give myself time to breathe in outside air and touch some grass.
And once I am active, it’s usually for a couple hours at most, then it’s back to being in my coma for a few days.
Could i ask how can you be one of the reddit exodus users if your account is 2 days old?
If you wanna leave lemmy do it on your main account to proof you are one of the over a year old accounts.
That we can salute and press F to the fallen user.
Lemmy works for me, Reddit doesn’t. I only use reddit now for porn.
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.
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?
I do not speak for OP, but, I mean… yeah? Now, I’m not particularly an egotist. I do not think I’m all that important. It’s more that while I come here primarily to get news, I prefer lemmy over other less interactive platforms because I can see how other people react and put my two cents in. And yes when I get interaction, I get a little dopamine hit. And really, what’s the point in social media without that element?
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 thought I liked it and that it had enough users, thank you for setting me straight.
You are entitled to delete your Lemmy app of choice and return to the corporate-approved Reddit™ content-consumption experience.
Don’t underestimate the power of shitposting.
That said, the Fediverse products are still behind in features, polish and ease-of-use. The mainstream prizes these surface-level things more than any others. It will take years of development still to fully catch up in that regard. So, it’s the long-haul.
What’s reddit?
ROFL….
Everything being mainstream is the reason the internet is becoming so shitty.
Being mainstream is exactly what I liked about reddit. It was the reincarnation of usenet. It has attracted all kinds of people doing all kinds of thing. Are you interested in swastika knitting? Piano jumping? Bathsponge sculpting? You can sure as hell find at least 2 other guys already doing it there.
Your best course for getting new content is to contribute.
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.
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
There’s an ecosystem of entire instances with crazy rules.
The fact that Lemmy just doesn’t become unusable with all this brokerage tells a lot about the benefits of a distributed system.
I do kind of miss the private clubs. I had worked my way up through 100K, 150K, 200K and 300K karma clubs before I bailed and came here.
Centennial Club was just the best. It was like Century Club, but way nicer!
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.
If you don’t like Lemmy, you already know where to go. Enjoy Spez, the ads, the selling of your data to train AI, etc…
I now turn to Lemmy daily. It is anything but failed.
