I don’t give two shits about taking down reddit. I just want somewhere else to go, and Lemmy works for that.
Comment on Lemmy Active Users looking good
Psythik@lemmy.world 6 months ago
That’s it? Wow, a lot fewer people were upset about the loss of 3rd party apps than I thought. We need to add at least 3 more zeroes to that number if this place stands a chance at taking down reddit.
Texas_Hangover@lemm.ee 6 months ago
KISSmyOS@feddit.de 6 months ago
Every once in a while I check up on what reddit looks like now.
I find the same or similar topics posted, with 600 comments instead of 30, and 570 of those 600 are just whatever’s the first thing that pops into everyone’s mind after reading the post title.
I like it better here.Coelacanth@feddit.nu 6 months ago
Both sides have their benefits, and it’s a shame there is no good best-of-both-worlds. I get where you’re coming from, I never felt the urge to participate on Reddit because it was so often just shouting into the void and getting buried in hundreds of one-word replies and in-jokes and memes. Here I feel seen, and often feel like my contribution (although mostly just small comments) makes an impact.
At the same time, a huge critical mass of a userbase is completely necessary for niche communities to survive. Maybe not as overwhelmingly massive as Reddit’s, but magnitudes larger than Lemmy has right now. Lemmy has a very distinct userbase slant and if you’re in the target audience (tech, FOSS, Linux etc) you’re probably great here. But even common interests like sports struggle for traction, and true niche stuff has an extremely tough time.
cmbabul@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Sports discussion and game threads are actually the only thing I really miss about Reddit, I find the time I spend on Lemmy much more productive/informative and less likely to get sucked down an argumentative rabbit hole.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 6 months ago
Yeah, I feel that. Formula 1 does okay (maybe unsurprisingly due to it being tech adjacent), but even huge sports like soccer are mostly ghost towns.
CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Maybe not as overwhelmingly massive as Reddit’s, but magnitudes larger than Lemmy has right now.
To confirm, you don’t think we have a minimum population base currently on Lemmy?
If so, how do you make that judgment? How are you measuring that? How are you quantifying that?
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 6 months ago
To confirm, you don’t think we have a minimum population base currently on Lemmy?
I mean, depends on what you view Lemmy as, right? It’s a great place to hang around and chat (depending on your interests). The people here are generally polite and friendly, and most interactions feel meaningful. It does not currently have enough content volume and niche communities to provide a viable Reddit alternative to most people.
If so, how do you make that judgment? How are you measuring that? How are you quantifying that?
Completely subjectively, though I didn’t think it was an unpopular opinion. I thought most people agreed niche communities struggle here. The exact number of users needed to reach critical mass I have no idea on, just a best guess extrapolating between where we are now and where Reddit was a decade ago. You can use Mastodon as another data point. I’m not on there, but I’m under the impression that Mastodon, too, has a little low userbase to truly feed niche communities, and it’s noticeably larger than Lemmy.
OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 6 months ago
It doesn’t need to take down reddit. I’d like to see Lemmy at 1 million active users though. Just need enough critical mass to be able to branch into more smaller sublemmys which draws in the fans of those subs specifically and creates better curated content.
N00dle@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah, 1 million would be about the right size for a better active community. 500k would probably do wonders too.
CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 6 months ago
at 1 million active users though. Just need enough critical mass to be able to branch into more smaller sublemmys which draws in the fans of those subs specifically
I was responding kind of someone else as well, but where are these numbers coming from?
Is it truly 1 million? Or maybe 500k? Or maybe 2 million?
People seem to be using numbers so arbitrarily.
cmbabul@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I think somewhere between 1-4 million would be a good cross section of interests without a critical mass of users
CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I think somewhere between 1-4 million would be a good cross section
500K (for example) people talking in communities wouldn’t be enough?
How did you derive the 1-4 million number?
BreakDecks@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
If this place ends up with 70 million users, I won’t be one of them. Lemmy isn’t a for-profit company. It doesn’t need growth for the sake of growth.
lemmyingly@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Imagine hosting an instance if Lemmy had that many users. I can imagine it being a full time job.
Psythik@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Agree to disagree. I miss having niche communities, and the only way to get them is with a large user base.
Dnn@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Oh, many more were upset - just too lazy to inconvenience themselves with switching platforms.
hightrix@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’d say this is only half of the answer.
After browsing Lemmy for a while, you get the sense that the average user here is the type that gets upset about a social media company making changes to an API. That is a very specific type of person and you can see it in the comments.
I’d guess people get turned off by that type of person and leave.
I come here once Reddit and hacker news content is old. This isn’t a place I’d recommend to anyone, unfortunately. There are extremely strong biases all over and deep echo chambers. Users here seem like the perpetually online type. Most perspectives I’ve seen have been heavily influenced by online discourse rather than reality.
I visit this site less and less due to the user base.
KISSmyOS@feddit.de 6 months ago
The perpetually online type is on Mastodon.
Here on Lemmy are the people who disconnected from social media, block or boycott 95% of today’s internet and self-host matrix servers to discuss about self-hosting matrix servers.RampageDon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Complains about strong bias here like it isn’t just as bad or worse on reddit.
hightrix@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Personally, I think it is worse here as there is almost zero opposing voice. On Reddit, there are people from almost sides of most topics. Here, in most conversations, there is only one side represented.
Now, I tend to agree with the bias here, on some things, some times. But even when I agree, I want to see arguments from the opposition. Otherwise, I never learn.
btaf45@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I don’t give a crap about the API. Reddit’s system of rando-bans are a fatal flaw to its usefullness.
hightrix@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I dont mean to be rude, but people that have been banned from Reddit coming here does not improve the community.
redcalcium@lemmy.institute 6 months ago
Slow but steady growth is better imo, especially since Lemmy’s moderation tools are still not that good and instance admins often get overwhelmed maintaining their own instance.
EnderMB@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I don’t want Lemmy to go after Reddit. I want it to be its own thing.
With that being said, more users would mean having some living communities. Some major communities on lemmy.world like videos are hilariously empty, probably less so than small, local subreddits.
Redecco@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I like the idea of a slow increase over time. I remember Reddit did that one chatroom experiment where you started out small. And then merged with larger and larger rooms. Small rooms had at least a chance to hang and chat and the larger rooms turned into twitch chat spam. To a degree maybe the same could be said for comments, on Reddit now I still see thousands of redundant replies to subjects whereas here it’s definitely still fresh if not shorter chains.
Though in terms of niche topics it may definitely need more traffic somehow. I think reddit benefits a lot from its search indexing and if Lemmy ever began to appear in search traffic more like forums did in early Google I could see that improving.
Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Are you trying to get the bots to migrate too?
only0218@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Old reddit isn’t dead yet
xfc@lemdro.id 6 months ago
Does it need to?
Dayroom7485@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I… kinda like lemmy the way it is I guess? Sure, I wish some niche-communities were a bit more active (looking at you, /c/malefashionadvice). But then again on Lemmy I actually feel motivated to contribute actively. Because I know my content won’t be monetized by some corporate behemoth. So maybe this is just fine the way it is?
shottymcb@lemm.ee 6 months ago
To be fair /r/malefashionadvice turned into a circlejerk of popular people posting fits (influencers?) and very little real advice outside of a preset notion of what was acceptable.