we need more users

Submitted ⁨⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de⁩ to ⁨fediverse@lemmy.world⁩

https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/c6d04591-bea6-4197-80d6-e48aadc47bb3.png

I’ve been one of the people saying “we don’t need more users. we need quality over quantity” and i was wrong.

the way it’s going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.

So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.

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Comments

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jenings@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
Just wait for Reddit to finally ban porn and we’ll have more users than we know what to do with

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- jode@pawb.social ⁨12⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Oh they won’t ban it they’ll hide 18+ subs behind a pay wall and call it “premium access”
  
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- Picasso@thelemmy.club ⁨57⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  you know what? that might be it!
  
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  - Sturgist@lemmy.ca ⁨27⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Lemmynsfw coming in clutch
    
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MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨45⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
Look, this is my filter list:

Image

Because i don’t want to deal with depressing politics every day in my off time.

And this is what i still see:

Image

Maybe a tagging system would help?

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- Skavau@piefed.social ⁨43⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Piefed has built in keyword filters for posts. You can move to piefed.zip if you want more options here.
  
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  - MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨40⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Thanks. But that’s one instance. I think this needs a lemmyverse implementation.
    
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super_user_do@feddit.it ⁨41⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
I’ll do my best! Luckily, Lemmy still has a healthy community though

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ulterno@programming.dev ⁨29⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
I advertised Lemmy to my friends a few times and they have now stopped replying to my messages :P

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- Sturgist@lemmy.ca ⁨25⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  I just keep sending them memes I know they’ll like. I’ve had 3 friends joing various instances so far, because after a while they just go:
  
  Man…where do you get these memes?!
  
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  - ulterno@programming.dev ⁨21⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Ah well, I am not good at that.
    The best I have gotten people to say is how I “know so much” about stuff at work and the best I can point them to is Wikipedia, StackOverflow and the like, which of course they aren’t really interested in doing and their lines are probably just a way to try and flatter me.
    
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  - FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Not memes but I keep the address bar in the screen shot.
    
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Surp@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
I’ve been here a few years now and I can say Lemmy’s got issues. You can’t come on here and have a good time anymore when all it’s about is trump trump trump and Linux Linux Linux it gets old. I wanna escape from reality a bit sometimes and there’s few areas to subscribe to that gives any joy anymore.

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- Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works ⁨30⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  I think part (though not all) of the issue is discoverability. There’s other communities where this isn’t as prevalent, but a) they’re not always easy to find, and b) for this as well as other reasons, they might not be super active (if people don’t know it exists, who’s posting?)
  
  I get around the first bit by trawling All New once and a while. One feature I will say I liked on reddit was the random community function. But while I like that it’s a smaller userbase here for some reasons, it does mean less diversity of interests.
  
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- Skavau@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  Do you subsccribe to other communities?
  
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Koarnine@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
After trying to convert a friend who heavily uses reddit, multiple times, I recommended him again the other day to leave the hellsite (reddit).

I didn’t recommend Lemmy but have a while back.

He himself specifically brought up that he ‘didn’t vibe with Lemmy as much as reddit’ and that he believes he would ‘miss stories he would otherwise have liked to see’ by switching to Lemmy.

Reddit has kept him more up to date than not over the past year - he believes had he not been using reddit he wouldn’t have found out about [specific events in iran] as early as he did.

The other main pain point I’ve encountered is the small and niche community problem, which I’m sure we are all aware of - certain information feels like it can only be found on such small subreddits.

Therefore I have two suggestions:

create a Lemmy instance that mirrors reddit, rather than have bots post reddit posts onto main Lemmy instances, create an instance that mirrors specific subreddits on request, including the comments of their posts, and allows Lemmy users to comment and reply back, where those comments are also propagated to reddit so that replies and discussion are mirrored also. This would struggle due to reddit API and compute power requirements but the subreddits on request and a specific instance for these posts would eliminate the bot spam problem from earlier attempts at the same thing.

potentially allow the user to associate their reddit account with the instance so comments etc can proliferate without bot recognition.

The other suggestion would be:

set up trackers for major and new subreddits, tag posts by priority, and use this set of posts to determine what content and types of content are missing, but don’t just automatically post everything as the spam problem gets out of hand.

Finally, my biggest gripe with my Lemmy use is the constant instance wars.

I have had my comments removed for being rightfully critical of Israel by lemmy.world mods. They appear intent on recreating the problems of reddit here.
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- Koarnine@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  Posted as a reply because this will certainly upset many but…
  
  On the instance wars:
  
  I constantly see nonsense about the horrors of the ‘.ML’ instance, and ‘hexbear’, primarily from ‘Lemmy.world’ users, but I have never once actually come across these horrors.
  
  Hexbear is just a troll instance, ala ‘cumtown’.
  
  To an outside observer, ‘.world’ users seem to be US propagandists intent on wrecking the platform. “Tankies this, cowbee that”, when I’ve never seen a cowbee post that wasn’t entirely reasonable.
  
  And the vast majority of ‘tankies’ are just people who criticise the US rightfully while not sharing the same breathe to criticize China. Ngl, fuck Russia, the US and Russia are the greatest evils. China is not anywhere near the same level. You can praise elements of a foreign state without being a ‘tankie’.
  
  It’s the same thought terminating cliche cult bullshit that all right wingers do. And it seems to come from Americans being upset their myopic views aren’t babied by people who literally specifically went to an instance to avoid them?
  
  Idk I’m not a user of any of the three, but I’ve only ever had an issue with lemmy.world users in the past, as a UK citizen who is far from a tankie.
  
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  - Skavau@piefed.social ⁨50⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Well, you wouldn’t come across hexbear or lemmygrad on pawb.social because it looks like your instance is defederated from them.
    
    To an outside observer, ‘.world’ users seem to be US propagandists intent on wrecking the platform. “Tankies this, cowbee that”, when I’ve never seen a cowbee post that wasn’t entirely reasonable.
    
    Cowbee definitely seems in a sense like a very civil apologist (although with all the trappings of contemporary campism and tankiesm) - and not the worst example by any means, but for every Cowbee there’s a BrainInABox type user.
    
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  - Pudutr0n@lemmy.world ⁨46⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    The reason why you haven’t seen these horrors is because to you they just look like others like you.
    
    Regardless if you agree with this post, for example, it’s propaganda, no different than the american apologists you can accurately identify, the bible thumpling catholics educating the uncivilized people that hadn’t heard the healing words of our lord and saviour jesus christ or those who believe everything should be privatized/converted into a free market due to orthodox economic doctrine.
    
    It is propaganda because it operates under the framework that someone who disagrees with a positive association must have not understood a specific sacred text or heard a sacred doctrine, or if they have they must be morally defficient, leaving no room for debate whatsoever.
    
    One of the easiest ways to spot propaganda is the “no room for questioning, let alone disagreeing” aspect. In healthy societies with healthy ideologies there is a legitimate space for disagreement and debate. If there wasn’t, power would always remain in the same hands which is one of the aspects most criticize about both capitalism and communism.
    
    And believe it or not, there is more to the world than the right-left west-east dychotomies.
    
    If you look at history, similar ideologigal schisms have happened time and time again in times of shifts in the balance of power, such as when the printing press was invented and the the catholic - lutheran division that came from it. or during the decadence and later fall of the roman republic with the equestrials vs patricians (which originally shared ideological vision).
    
    These largescale violent power struggles always end up boiling down to “you’re either with us or against us” which in my opinion is the true poison.
    
    Feel free to disqualify or label me now and have a nice day.
    
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dantel@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’m a very new user and who wanted to give this a chance, here are the friction points from my point of view:

The onboarding is way too complicated for the average user. A huge part of this is that there are 100 ways to do it. Before you even can start to do anything you have to investigate and then decide on what and how to do it. And even then there is no guidance at all, you are given options and then you can either go and do some research again or try them one by one. You lose at least 90% of the users here already. It doesn’t help that fediverse users try to downplay this issue.

Content discovery sucks ass. My feed stayed mostly the same since I started using Lemmy. I’m presented the same shit over and over again. I’m not sure if it’s something that I do wrong, if there is just no content or if that’s a side effect of ‘no tracking at all’ but either way the experience is just bad

Someone in here already said it, but ‘Lemmy’ is a horrendous name. That alone was the reason why I didn’t bother to try it at all.

In short the user experience is abysmal.
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- Skavau@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  Have you considered trying out Piefed? Piefed has custom feed options currently.
  
  The onboarding is way too complicated for the average user. A huge part of this is that there are 100 ways to do it. Before you even can start to do anything you have to investigate and then decide on what and how to do it. And even then there is no guidance at all, you are given options and then you can either go and do some research again or try them one by one. You lose at least 90% of the users here already. It doesn’t help that fediverse users try to downplay this issue.
  
  I don’t really know how you make the onboarding, the instance selection easier at this point. What do you propose?
  
  What site did you use when you found lemmy?
  
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- GMac@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  I agree. New user introduction is very poor. Took me ages just to choose an instance - and that was in no small part because I’m here not only to escape the enshittified chokepoint capitalism of american big tech, but also because I’m utterly sick of the domination of US centric points of view and censorship. Even though i know communities are not instance locked, I wanted an instance that is not likely to be managed in the same way. Time will tell if I chose well or poorly
  
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- zaphod@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  I’m presented the same shit over and over again.
  
  Do you sort by active? Use hot or scaled instead.
  
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  - dantel@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yeah, it was sorted by active. Changed it to hot, let’s see how that goes. Thanks for the hint.
    
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  - Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yeah, no idea why Active is still the default.
    
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- made3@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I am also new (coming from Reddit) and it was confusing that there was no register button anywhere. I also agree a lot on the naming, when I searched for it to get some info on what it is and how it works I first got a lot of results for the Lemmings game. Also when you search in the playstore for “Lemmy” you get the Lemmings games…
  
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- reksas@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  Someone in here already said it, but ‘Lemmy’ is a horrendous name. That alone was the reason why I didn’t bother to try it at all for a long time. Only recent events pushed me towards it but tbh I’m not sure I’ll stay.
  
  You can say that again. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmy
  
  Guess what results come up first when you search for lemmy
  
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- Hubi@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The onboarding being a bit difficult is a good thing IMO, it keeps the standards a bit higher and the Facebook boomers and TikTok children out. The internet was better when it wasn’t so easily accessible.
  
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idunnololz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
As a developer for a Lemmy app, recently I’ve felt Lemmy become more and more fragmented resulting in a poorer than usual user experience. And the base user experience is already poor. I’m mostly just venting but man is the fragmentation annoying to deal with :/

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- rglullis@communick.news ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Let’s stop working on “Lemmy app” , “mbin app”, “PieFed app”, “Mastodon app” and just embrace ActivityPub as the single API.
  
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  - Quill7513@slrpnk.net ⁨45⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    phone apps can’t use activity pub as that’s a server protocol so if you want a good mobile interface you generally speaking need a rest-y api that an application can query. yes, lemmy and piefed both feature PWA frontends that can be installed to your homescreen, however on older phones this can be an extremely suboptimal experience as PWAs tend to require more RAM than native apps.
    
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ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Okay, now let’s see Piefed and mbin users!

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Delphia@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I posted in an ADHD community about how I’m fed up with managing my symptoms and I think I finally need to talk to a professional. Someone tried to blame my symptoms on capitalism.

As someone who simply left Reddit because they took away RIF and only stays here because I’m stubborn, Lemmy is the left wing version of Truth Social. A great deal of the users here are the absolute embodiment of the people from Sanfrancisco in South Park huffing each others farts about how progressive they are.

Like, I get it and I do agree in principle on most things with Lemmy which is the only reason I dont leave, but make no mistake THE FEDIVERSE IS AN ECHO CHAMBER.

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- JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I wanted to see it and did take a look into your profile: That was one user and he was rightfully criticized and downvoted for that stupid post. It’s not great that this happened, but I’m not sure if it is fair to judge all of us here based on that
  
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- leftascenter@jlai.lu ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  Lemmy is the left wing version of Truth Social
  
  I’d say a few instances are indeed, but overall I find it ranges from far left to centerish, where as TS ranges from far right.
  
  but make no mistake THE FEDIVERSE IS AN ECHO CHAMBER.
  
  VERSE IS AN ECHO CHAMBER…
  
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- MBech@feddit.dk ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I really don’t mind that the fediverse is an echo chamber. I’m in no way interessted in having conversations with fascists.
  
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fizzle@quokk.au ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Here is my super unpopular take: ultimately you / some / we have misunderstood “quality over quantity”.

It doesn’t mean “we don’t want more users”, it means that the best way to attract more users and growth of the platform is to focus on being the best fediverse we can be. Actively trying to attract more users is a foot gun - even in the unlikely event you’re successful, you reduce the quality of the experience for everyone.

Focusing instead on the health, vibrance, management, and activity of the platform is the best way to attract more users.

Perhaps another way of saying the same thing: the most fertile market segment are those users who used to be active monthly. They were here trying to participate at some point but lost interest. Why? Pretty solid guess is that they were still logging in to reddit for the special / niche interest subs, and after a few months got sick of checking lemmy.

IMO, dead special interest communities are the cancer consuming the fediverse. Nothing wrong with a small active community, but a small community with a half dozen posts from 3 years ago is a big sign saying “go back to reddit, this place is dead”.

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- PagPag@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This place has always been dead if special interest groups are a measure. There is nothing here and honestly never was…
  
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  - fizzle@quokk.au ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’m not disagreeing with you. I didn’t say “this place used to be a utopia of special interest content”.
    
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- Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Would it almost be better to prune old communities? I agree it’s off-putting to find community for an interest and seeing last activity like a year ago, doesn’t make you want to post since it seems inactive.
  
  One thing about how reddit/lemmy works though is people subscribed (assumedly still active on Lemmy elsewhere) might still see that content vs a forum where no activity means very few visit the site.
  
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  - fizzle@quokk.au ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That might be an option. I personally would be fine with that but I’ve noticed that many / most users get very upset about the notion that posts / communities / users are impermanent ?
    
    Another solution is to simply promote these dead communities - if anyone is interested in warming them up then they should do so. If they’re consistent then after a few months ask existing mods to add them as mods, or ask admins to do so if the mods are not responsive.
    
    This approach runs the risk that the person doing the work may not become a mod, but honestly I don’t think being a mod should be the objective of creating a community.
    
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  - moopet@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Pruning is a bad idea imo. Old communities here (like on reddit) can be great resources for solutions to technical problems, for example. And weird one-off communities that have like 2 memes from a decade ago can be really funny when you get linked to them.
    
    Perhaps a notification-type nag, a tab of “communities you used to use but haven’t posted to for a while” but with a snappier title, alongside “local” and “all”.
    
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cozzy@futurology.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Lemmy feels like a return to the old internet, when communities were smaller, and for me its refreshing to be able to participate in communities on major topics again without getting drowned out. It harkens back to the days of early forums and message boards, where users gathered around shared interests and discussions felt more organic.

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- RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  I enjoy that aspect for sure. Once I had subscribed to enough communities, I have plenty of content and apparent activity in my feed. For a lot of people that takes getting used to and people have low attention spans.
  
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- desentizised@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Couldn’t say it any better. If stagnant popularity is what is necessary to stay unattractive for botnets and bad actors I personally am all for it.
  
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- Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I agree with you but I would still want numbers to go up a little bit, not down the way they are apparently.
  
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Xanthobilly@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
It’s quality and quantity. The quality has held despite a drop in users. Just wait and let Reddit have another controversy and we’ll get another infusion of converts. Popularity may only threaten more bots and scams.

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- Redredme@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It is. It’s one of the reasons i’ve pivot back to reddit these last few months.
  
  More then Reddit this place is an echo chamber for the far left anti capitalist crowd. While I don’t mind a discussion, everything over simplified to EAT THE RICH was getting tiresome.
  
  No company or institution is here. If I have a problem with my [insert device or appliance here] chances are good someone on reddit will reply and 50/50 there is a useable answer somewhere. Here it just stays silent. Or you get the anti capitalist reply that everything is fucked and we should just eat the rich.
  
  There are no real gaming or device or brand communities. Want to ask something about modding game x? Not here. Want to hook up with other players of game y? Not here. Want to know how to fix your [household appliance here]? Not here…Have a problem with mainboard from brand z? Not here.
  
  When you ask something here about Linux or any other gpl software the answer often times boils down to RTFMI! (I= idiot) That also happens on reddit to be honest. But here it’s just more extreme. And I know I’m an idiot. That’s why I asked. I’m too stupid can someone please explain.
  
  Where the fuck is LJDawson. Sync is dead it seems.
  
  And yes. Reddit more and more feels like an AI test site. For example the AITA posts are getting more and more out of this world. They are unbelievable, that’s just for clicks. So the enshittification is not slowly but very fast becoming a problem and within a few months it will be another youtube, unusable. But for now… It’s the best we have.
  
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  - DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    
    For example the AITA posts are getting more and more out of this world.
    
    What’s this AITA sub you speak of?
    
    It’s called r/AmateurStoryWriters ffs, get the name right
    
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- gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  and we’ll get another infusion of converts
  
  You know, there was a great blog recently that wrote about this, that now is the perfect time to popularize the fediverse. That’s because as tensions with the US are rising, more people in europe are looking for alternative internet platforms to communicate over. So the fediverse can jump in here and offer itself as an alternative.
  
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  - Eldritch@piefed.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    It’s not just Europe. Plenty of us in the United States looking to circumvent the vanguard party. And fascism is rising globally. We need decentralization and federation to survive going forward.
    
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  - zaphod@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    When I look at some generic instance’s unfiltered feed all I see is posts about USA/Trump. I can see how this might deter a lot of Europeans who are looking for alternatives to Reddit.
    
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  - SorteKanin@feddit.dk ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    We’re actually seeing a rise in new user applications over at Feddit.dk. The hostile behavior of the US has gotten some Reddit users to seek alternatives to american platforms.
    
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- ambitiousslab@lemmy.ml ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  It’s quality and quantity. The quality has held despite a drop in users.
  
  This is my experience too; I haven’t really noticed a change. I still see about the same number of conversations and the same depth of conversation as I always have here. I was very surprised that the change in user count was so high.
  
  I wonder if there’s a committed/stable subsection of the userbase, that is mainly responsible for posts and comments, and has largely stuck around throughout? And then most of the swings in user count are from people who were less active to begin with?
  
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  - Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    its also the fact that we can ban whole communities too, from popping up your feed. since there are less users, blocking the users that are obviously tankies or conservatives, reduces us seeing more posts.
    
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- Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  Just wait and let Reddit have another controversy and we’ll get another infusion of converts.
  
  Just wait
  
  this is how something like Digg swoops in and steals all the users
  
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  - Xanthobilly@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Digg? Now with AI? That Digg? You mean the Digg that lost all its users to Reddit in the first place? Not happening.
    
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  - Endmaker@ani.social ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Or Bluesky / Threads vs Mastodon
    
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- postcapitalism@lemmy.today ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I like it here
  
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  - jed@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Seconded. I just learned it exists last week. It’s good and has a lot of potential.
    
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- Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  the sudden rise in 2025 early on, was the massive purges reddit was doing, banning almost anyone left and right, and hitting all thier accounts at once. when they usually never try to multi-ban you before.
  
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Muaddib@sopuli.xyz ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I send my friends memes. They ask “Muad’dib, where do you get these great memes?” I say I get my great memes from Lemmy. They instantly lose interest, because Lemmy is full of tankies and kinphobes

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- StripedMonkey@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This is the central reason I choose not to engage with most posts. It’s a toss up whether I’m talking to a rational human being or I happened to walk into the side of the antinatalist hyper accelerationist ML willing to die to defend the most obscure take about consent or something.
  
  I would love a more healthy, less terminally online discourse on Lemmy.
  
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  - Skavau@piefed.social ⁨59⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    I mean the majority of campists and tankies on the fediverse are going to be from .ml.
    
    You are also on .zip so you can also see lemmygrad and hexbear users.
    
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  - Alaknar@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    100% agree. I tend to get my political comments downvoted a lot because I keep saying silly things like “capitalism and communism are both utopias that break due to human greed” or “anarchism won’t solve the issue of people like Trump grabbing power”.
    
    Lots of weird people loving the power of magical words around here.
    
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- leftascenter@jlai.lu ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Have you tried telling them inspiration comes from spice? Want some? First one’s on me?
  
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GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The text in the graph needs better contrast. I can’t read that shit

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ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Part of the issue (I feel a large part ) is that the learning curve is too steep to get on Lemmy

Now I’m not saying it’s hard at all; but it’s significantly higher than simply “go to a main page and create a user name and password”. Lemmy needs a sign up page that just random signs you up to an active instance (per the instances permission) and automatically subscribes you to the 50 most active instances to just get you started up.

Making a getting started page that’s as idiot proof as any .com would probably go a long ways into upping our numbers here.

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- OpenStars@piefed.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The random one can send you to places like hexbear.net (I’ve tried the randomizer, and I’m not joking it actually truly did pick that very instance for me). Have you ever visited that place? It’s like being sent to a leftist MAGA rally. If I was sent there, I’d nope out and never return to the Threadiverse again.
  
  Another place the randomizer can send you is lemmy.ml. Have you seen all the posts calling for outright murder of people living in the Western world? Well, let’s just say that a mainstream non-technical normie user who is currently living in a Western world is not likely at all to feel terribly welcomed there.
  
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  - Muaddib@sopuli.xyz ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Hexbear is nothing like a leftist MAGA rally. It’s more like a MAGA rally.
    
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  - Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    even the banners and display they use its obviously very “pro-communist”
    
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WhirlpoolBrewer@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’ll commit to commenting more. I prefer to lurk, but the fediverse needs me 🤣

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jqubed@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Is this strictly Lemmy or does it include related platforms like PieFed and Mbin? Because it seems like there has been some shift to PieFed

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morto@piefed.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I have been noticing a drop in post/comments diversity and quantity. The diminishing users is something noticeable and sad.

We’re in times where we need to seek alternatives to big tech more than ever, and yet, people don’t seem to care :(

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heyWhatsay@slrpnk.net ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Just talk up Lemmy, the issue is most people doesn’t realize there’s another option to the popular toxic trash fires.

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xhs@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The hurdle of registration and getting into the Fediverse is, in my view, too high for many people.
I had to guide my brother step by step to get him into the Fediverse.
I think that’s where it often fails.
It needs to be much easier to join — then more people would probably come in.

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mapto@feddit.bg ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
How about bridging over to bluesky? If they could follow and comment threads, the userbase explodes 10-fold (compared to the current exposure to mastodon).

See this thread: github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/372

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wpb@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall

I don’t consider this a given. E.g. your new users might all be dingleberries, or they might attract more bots. It also depends on your definition of quality. I quite like recognizing and conversing with regulars that I know from lemmy. This is something you lose with a larger userbase.

Here’s another way a high monthly active user count doesn’t necessarily lead to a quality platform. Suppose most users post once a month. Conversations will largely be dominated by posts from folks who have no real connection with each other. Any meaningful conversation is drowned in an ocean of seagulls going “have my updoot, kind sir” and “this!”. Higher user count, lower quality.

Aside from that, vanity metrics like bare user count typically don’t tell you whether you have a sustainable non-ad based platform. You don’t need users, you need users willing to donate for the operation (to instance admins) and maintenance (to the devs) of the platform. And I feel (0 data to back this up) like users are more likely to be donating users if they feel like they know the operators and devs personally.

I’m not saying the idea of getting more users is bad, I’m just saying its goodness is very far from established.

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dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Maybe everyone should be a literal more willing to discuss things than just dog pile on with downvotes.

This place is mighty insufferable and I say that as one insufferable twat.

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Weydemeyer@lemmy.ml ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The source data shows that while active users are down, the number of posts and comments are near all-time highs. While you need new users to help counteract churn, I think the higher post/comments count points to what I think a lot of people feel here: that quality seems to keep getting better and better.

Regarding how to bring more people in, I personally like how different lemmy servers have slightly different characteristics but each seems to appeal to larger groups. .world is great for more liberal folks with an interest in what’s going on the world around us. I’m literally a communist so I feel more at home in .ml. Sometimes I want to venture out, sometimes I want to stay in. I see a future where there’s probably a small-ish number of large servers that cover broad groups of people.

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bbboi@feddit.uk ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
A) “Lemmy” is an embarrassingly bad name.

B) Most of the content I see on here seems to be shitposts. Not saying it all is, but the immediate impression for new users is terrible.

C) Lemmy’s biggest strength is also its biggest weakness. Moderation is near non-existent and the comment section of posts always devolves into shit.

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jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I tell people about lemmy and send them links. Mostly people don’t care about anything. Abstract or remote things like “should a platform be owned by one asshole?” just doesn’t even enter their brain.

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Boiglenoight@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’m happy to promote it. I tried to get a few non-technical people to check it out. They felt it was too complicated. I’ve shared it with tech friends and coworkers who use Reddit. They’re aware of Lemmy to varying degrees, and are not enthused about moving to another platform despite hating Reddit.

I think it’s because despite Lemmy being a great alternative, it is more complicated and lacks the user base that users of other social media platforms have.

Bluesky is marginally more complicated than Twitter, but compared to Mastodon it is user friendly. Bluesky worked to create a dedicated, easy to use app that most users use.

Bluesky existed for a while before experiencing explosive growth. This occurred during moments of controversy with X. Bluesky capitalized on these moments, with champions on both platforms that led their followers to change, and there were mechanisms in place to bootstrap a user’s feed with the followers and topics that they had in the other place.

I think Lemmy needs to follow this model. There needs to be a Lemmy app that has a user experience as similar as possible with the Reddit app. It also needs champions that have main stream recognition (George Takei, Mark Hamill, etc.) that can be willing to make noise about switching from Reddit to Lemmy when the next controversy occurs. Repeat with more and more promotion by this evangelists, and Lemmy could grow.

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bigmamoth@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Was on subs about gaming and the most upvoted post was some gay shit about lgbt. As bluesky you are a brainwashed community that s unapproachable for the majority. On every political issue you are an enclave of opiniated ppl that dont even represent 5% of real opinion in the real world. I come here time to time just to laugh at the collective retardness. It s incredible how you can 't comprehend the issue isn’t the software it s the user. And that s why nothing gonna change

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