Please indulge a few shower thoughts I had:

  1. I wouldn’t worry about Lemmy having as many users as reddit in the short term. Success is not just a measure of userbase. A system just needs a critical mass, a minimum number of users, to be self-perpetuating. For a reddit post that has 10k comments, most normal people only read a few dozen comments anyways. You could have half the comments on that post, and frankly the quality might go up, not down. (That said, there are many communities below that minimum critical mass at the moment.)

  2. Lemmy is now a real alternative. When reddit imploded Lemmy wasn’t fully set up to take advantage of the exodus, so a lot of users came over to the fediverse and gave up right away. There were no phone apps, the user interface was rudimentary, and communities weren’t yet alive. Next time reddit screws up in a high profile way, and they will screw up, the fediverse will be ready.

  3. Lemmy has way more potential than reddit. Reddit’s leadership has always been incompetent and slow at fixing problems. The fediverse has been very responsive to user feedback in comparison.

  • legion@lemmy.worldEnglish
    492·
    1 year ago

    Lemmy has enough user activity to fulfill my time-wasting needs.

    There doesn’t need to be one website that EVERYONE is at. The Web didn’t used to be so damn consolidated.

    I don’t give one shit about “Lemmy vs. Reddit”. I care about Lemmy having active communities to engage in, regardless of what is happening on some other website.

    • insertfloppydiskhere@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      1 year ago

      Yes this is my thinking as well. Before reddit I was more than happy participating in forums on subjects I enjoyed. I had want I wanted. I almost have that here as well. That’s success in my eyes.

    • Dumeinst@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I think so too. I used reddit up until rif stopped working about a week ago (for me at least). Ive always been a reluctant participant in social media largely because of how consolidated everything is. Which, at the end of the day just means we’re easier to market to or monetize. I’m excited about the possibilities of lemmy in a way I’ve never been about social media before. The content is currently a little sparse; you have to go looking a little, but that’ll improve quickly I’m betting. There’s no shortage of content to be had. In a small way it feels like the Internet 25 years ago

  • Yerbouti@lemmy.mlEnglish
    19·
    1 year ago

    The main difference for me is that I feel like I’m part of a global project, not just a product in some big tech’s ecosystem.

  • HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.comEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    1. No surveillance capitalism. unlike reddit, lemmy isn’t trying to monetize/track you.

    2. Freedom/openness. Already, someone can use a third party app to use lemmy. Moving forward, I think, people will come up with new ways to utilize lemmy/activity pub.

  • lily33@lemm.eeEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    To me, the smaller userbase is actually a real problem. I’m willing to stick it out and hope it grows. But for over half of the subreddits I subscribe to, the corresponding lemmy communities have 0 posts this last week.

    Yes, I don’t need 10k comments on my posts. But memes or mainstream news was never the big value of reddit for me - I can get these anywhere. Instead it is about the niche communities with a few thousand subscribers. And for now, I still have to use reddit for them.

    • whatisallthis@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Yeah the very top post on hot right now has 9 comments lmao.

      There is no one here. I mean I love the platform and the apps. I don’t go to Reddit anymore on my phone. But there’s no one here.

      If I don’t go to Reddit at least once per day I’m going to miss news and events that are important to me.

      • lily33@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        Still visiting several subreddits that don’t have corresponding active lemmy communities. Once of them actually has an “official” lemmy community (run by the same mods) but none of the people moved over, so it’s empty,

  • stealth_cookies@lemmy.caEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    As a fairly early Reddit user I’ve seen a lot of change as the website got bigger. I would agree that growth is not necessarily good, there is a minimum size of community to keep content fresh and a maximum size before it loses the personal connection. Right now a lot of the larger Lemmy communities are getting active enough, but Lemmy is lacking the users to support the niche communities. Maybe it is best if Reddit keeps those and the two websites end up with a happy balance for all the types of communities.

  • guts@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    The important catalyst is good third party clients working with Lemmy as Voyager and Sync and people learning about the fediverse.

  • gxgx55@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    My problem with Lemmy is the lack of activity in niche communities. You’re right that there needs to be a critical mass and arguably Lemmy has it, but only for the most mainstream, generic type of content. It doesn’t have the mass to sustain any sort of niche, outside of maybe tech related topics because of the way the userbase is slanted.

    I find myself going back there often because of that, but I hope that the userbase for generic content enough to sustain and grow, from where more active niche communities can spring up.

  • Erismi14@midwest.socialEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Reddit has always had changes that made people want to leave. Removing CSS was the first that comes to mind. Now that lemmy exists it could be seen as a new platform to jump to every time reddit does something dumb or anti user. I have high hopes for lemmy

  • Milk@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    On Lemmy you’re automatically an extremist if you’re not socialist.