Looks like Lemmy is climbing up to the 2023 exodus days numbers again

So, back in 2023 I discovered Lemmy, made an account, but after a bit quit again because I never checked it. I recently made an account again since Reddit has started getting really bad (tons of bots, tons of conservative posts on r/popular after the election, etc) and only recently started actually using said account.

I think using Lemmy requires a different strategy than using Reddit. On Reddit, if you wanted to subscribe to, say, a Linux discussion group, you would just go to r/linux, and there would be just 4 more even more niche subs you could join, like r/linux4noobs. On Lemmy, their are 6 main Linux groups and 14 niche Linux groups across several instances.

The first time I joined Lemmy, I subscribed to just one of these groups like I would on Reddit, but my feed didn't have enough content so eventually I got bored. The second time around, I created I've just subscribed broadly to every community related to my interests, so I if I was interested in Linux I would subscribe to all 20 Linux communities.

I then hypothesized that if I did this for every interest (ex, say my only interests were Linux & Plants, or something), that discussion of topics that was more popular on Lemmy, like Linux, would drown out my other interests. To avoid this being an issue, I made 3 accounts for 3 feeds

My "general account" in which I subscribed to nearly every top sub, so if I found I didn't care about a certain topic on All I could unsubscribe instead of outright blocking those communities (that's this account)
My "interests account" in which I subscribed to my personalized interests like privacy or environment
My "fun account" in which I subscribed to just meme, gaming, cats, etc communities

That's all just me though, how do y'all use Lemmy differently from Reddit? I'm curious as to how I can git gud at Lemmy lol

To avoid this being an issue, I made 3 accounts for 3 feeds

Similar approach here. Works okay, but personal feeds would be better
that discussion of topics that was more popular on Lemmy, like Linux, would drown out my other interests

I certainly run into that. I don't think I have the energy for multiple accounts, but I wish I could ask for roughly equal numbers of posts from my top 4-5 communities, instead of News + WorldNews dominating everything.
Should just introduce a list feature. Share lists of servers and have upvotes on them and subscribe counts and description of the list. So looking into Linux lists, you can see that the top list has most of the communities, a few that are excluded for whatever reason, most people subscribing to that list.
I just always sort by all and block instances / communities I don't want to see

I'm glad more people are realizing how evil big tech companies are.

I always thought Reddit was an exception and I wouldve drode it forever if they didn't auto perm ban me "ban evasion," and deny my appeals. I just believed there was no other option and had been arguing there for 15 years and didn't want to leave lol. Sure like 25% of my comments and 50% of my posts would get removed for not following some arbitrary rules perfectly, but it just felt like the tradeoff of a big forum. (At least here when mods only can post it's clear, on reddit you could drop a post for a game release and get it removed so a mod can post it)
- Every negative change came with some good, like oh they banned some free speech but they also got rid of jailbait/creepshots so good? Except one of those should.ve never been there for so long and on the front page in the first place. It's like they sneak in the terrible decisions they want to make with the obvious ones that should've been made long ago.

I finally bit the bullet and deleted my 14yr old Reddit account last night. It was the only way to break my habit.

🫶 Its hard to give up all that history
- No history is gone, all your posts and comments stay up lol, you have to manually edit them or use a third party service, too late now. They still have any helpful info you gave.
- Yeah, it was tough. I did clean it out a couple of times over the years, but it’d been a while when I deleted it.
I still have it but only follow niche and local subs for which there isn't enough engagement here yet.
- Gotta start making them and posting just to get the ball rolling a little, you can always turn over moderating if someone wants it. I need to take my own advice when I'm bored.
- Yeah, the only subreddit I miss so far is r/evilautism lol but I did request the mod there create one here as well.

In 2010 I was part of the Great Digg Exodus, and now in 2025 I'm part of the Reddit->Lemmy migration. Truly I'm part of the crowd.

You’re so cool keeping up with the trends 😎
- More like I have no personality and just go with the flow 😜
If you want to be unique start using friendica lmao

I feel like as more people wake up to how social media is toxic and quite literally programming by the rich, they will seek out alternatives that are owned by the people.

This is how the Internet was intended to be.

This person fucks.

Hard to believe how many of us there actually are, yet social media has conditioned us into believing a website is dead unless it has 50 million daily visitors.

We certainly aren't hurting for content (well, yes, we are, but the archive is being built as we speak.)

I was on reddit for sixteen years, and on digg and a little slashdot for several years before that. I spend a lot of time in places like these. I'm not even on a super popular instance, and there's plenty of content here.
- I grew up when the Internet was essentially a bunch of forum communities and 10k people was a lot of people. Something Awful felt massive with 300k registered users.
  
  You don't need 150,000,000 people on a subreddit to have a good community.
  
  Communities are far better when you can recognize the names of people and remember then from previous interactions. On Reddit, you'll probably never talk to the same person twice.
  
  You can't have a community full of bots if there are only a few hundred people who all know each other.
- Seriously though, I’ll scroll for hours at a time. Some of my favorite online communities ever are here on lemmy. What we’re building here is awesome.
  
  It’s not uncanny to the point of having a full community for every game, hobby, and random concept that’s ever crossed someones mind. But honestly after seeing the internet evolve over the years I’m kind of over the idea of trying to cram everything into one giant website. Fedi is particularly awesome for that of course, moreso than ever now with loops and pixelfed doing so well
- I would say lemmy is in one of the better positions of the fediverse, as far as being useful.
  
  IE IMO the facebook/instagram equivelents you need an insane critical mass to get anywhere, because simply put, in a crowd of 100k in the globe, you probably don't have your friends/family... IE the people you use those apps to see.
  
  Mastadon... a little bit better as you are looking for general stuff, but still the main drive of twixxer is reading on celebs, noteworthy figures etc...
  
  Lemmy... well sure in 100k people you'll absolutely find some with interesting discussion on politics, gaming, plenty of memes and cat pictures etc... Obviously without a real huge constant growth we won't be the ideal place to discuss super niche topics (least ones that aren't only discussed by a handful of geeks). So barring either super narrowly focused migrations, or major exedus's lemmy will probably lag behind reddit when it comes to say discussing specific games/movies, but will continue to have great content in the overall gaming/movie/meme topics.
- I only thought it would be an issue my first week of Lemmy, using it for a month now I really like the smaller community.
- I love enabling the display of the instance of other users. It lets you realize how many small and niches instances are out there!
Our content is definitely on the low end for niche topics. Subs either don't exist, or there might be like 4 members.
Similar for gaming, "dead game" on a game that has way more than enough people to fill a lobby still. Or even worse if its a single player game.

Thank fuck, maybe I can go back to being a lurker lol

I've probably posted more here in just the last couple months than my entire decade+ years old Reddit account LMAO

Same here dude I've posted ridiculous amounts on [email protected] and did a highlight by highlight match thread on [email protected] once. That last one was painful af.
- relatable. I started lemdro.id cause I wanted to lurk lol
I’ve probably posted more here in just the last couple months than my entire decade+ years old Reddit account LMAO

Same. On topics on than Romeposting(tm) I'd love to go back to being a lurker and only an occasional contributor. I imagine it'll be a while before that day comes, though.
- Honestly thank you for your service Pug, there is a +75 next to your name for me for a reason
- Same boat here
I tend to lurk just because I have nothing to add to the conversation lol
- I don't let that stop me.
- If you at least upvote you aren't lurking as that counts as engagement.
Thank you for your service 🫡
Thank you for doing your part in getting the ball rolling!
My app tells me I upvoted you 12 times in the last 10 days. Thank you
- What app is that? Does it also show me other's up votes?
I recognize your name and appreciate your efforts, fam!
Thank your for your service. 🙏 Building a community takes work. Let's hope this one is more resilient to corpo-lobotomize than Reddit, Digg and Slashdot.
As a fellow lurker, I sincerely thank you and everyone else that has been putting in the extra effort to post threads and comments!
Yeah! I’ve been doing the same. I actually find myself thinking “I haven’t participated in a conversation in over a week. I better find something to comment on.”
Likewise

I've literally posted over 3k comments and over 300 posts since moving over here

I've been busy over here lol
Fellow lurker at heart here. Kinda heartwarming to see a bunch of lurkers doing things out of their comfort zone!
lmao posting in communtities from my different accounts (not to the same communities, like alts for keeping notifcations on topics seperate) to help build up my future lurking places
Even though i have been much more active here than on reddit, i have way less karma

Every time i tried to calculate the percentage of how much less, it said something about dbzer0.com for some reason
- Do I detect a divide by zero joke? Nice!

Hopefully people start posting in niche communities!

(But not the Taylor Swift armpit one)

The thing I miss most from Reddit is all the niche technical communities. So much knowledge is contained in those.
- Sounds to me like we need universities and maybe even governments to be running Lemmy instances.
- [email protected] can help
- Same!!! Or niche fields of studies, although there's a lot less serious ones of that kind lol
Did you say especially the Taylor Swift armpit one? You perv.
- Yeah, what's it called so I don't accidentally stumble on it?
- Which community is that so I can block it?

Proud to be one of the active user 🫡

Yes I’m here so expect this place to be filled with awful soon.

I can’t go back to Reddit. Bots, bots as far as the eyes can see.

Welcome!

I’ve logged back onto here for the first time in ages because I do not trust big tech.

Welcome back!
Good :) welcome back!
because I do not trust big tech.

Dude, same. I mean, I get that's why many are here, but it's just gotten so much worse lately.

Starting to build my first Linux machine to use as my daily driver laptop. Been meaning to get into it all for years, but Microsoft's constant shenanigans as of late and everyone on Lemmy really pushed me to take the plunge.

It'll be a "baby's first project" of a used Thinkpad running on Mint, but it's a start to getting out from under these corporate fucks. Every step away is a step to which I'm not planning to return.
Welcome back

So we have about as many users as the subreddit dedicated to Taylor Swift's armpits

If only we could find a way to have such quality content here! If only...
- You make I upload? Deal?
...is this for real? I don't want to check, but I also can't tell if this is a joke.
- I just checked, it exists but has 2500 subs
This is hilarious, but I need facts.

All together, we (Lemmy) are hotter than oatmeal, but we're less interesting than office chairs. (On Reddit).
- Everyone is comparing active users to total users though, Lemmy's total users is about 10x the number of actives users at 477k. I think you have to post or comment to be marked active?
- Don't feel bad, office chairs are a big deal. Something you spend 8+ hours of your day in aught to be scrutinized and carefully chosen
https://www.reddit.com/r/taylorswiftarmpits but it's just have 2000 user?

@[email protected]
- Wow, I for one, can't wait until we have peak content like this over here.

I came back to Lemmy as in trying to avoid American corporation owned social networks. Reddit falls into that category.

I have been temporarily banned from a new account I made a while ago to return after my permabanned last summer. I am seriously thinking of fully ditching reddit save for a few special nerdy interests (and porn).
- We have porn! But yeah we need more population growth for niche and local communities to really flourish.
Welcome back!
That's why I'm here.
- Welcome!

Lemmy has so much more and more diversified content than at the time of the API exodus. Hopefully, it will help us much more lemmygrant this time around.

What happened 2023?

3rd party API restrictions as they ramped up for their IPO and the shitshow that ensued.
The other answers are correct, I just wanted to add that they're talking about Reddit
The first time people actually joined lemmy, before then was probably like 1 instance with near-dead activity.
- I remember there were reddit-likes too, they just didnt work with fediverse. And were mostly....well almost all were unsavory. Like they were ONLY populated with people reddit didnt want anymore. Communities with banned content. So not the greatest.
  
  Im glad lemmy/piefed/kbin and all other activityhub/fediverse alternatives are out there.

Hopefully they are active and interesting people.

I am not interesting
Lemmy needs post creators above all but we will take everyone
- Sir, shit posters are the back bone of any online fora.

what you mean all around the GLOBE there are only 47k active users? How does it compare to Reddit? I am an ex redditor. Banned for a comment in unpopular opinion sub lol

I don't know how many users reddit has, but it is a lot more than lemmy. Lemmy is quite small in terms of number of users.

But I think focusing on relative numbers of users is a mistake. Forty thousand people is still a lot of people. And we can see that it is enough people to create a vibrant community with a steady stream of good content and conversations. So the fact that it is small compared to other social media is not really relevant, in my opinion. Having a thousand times more users doesn't make things a thousand times better - that's for sure.

(That said, I do think its worth noting if the number of users is going up or down... because if there was a significant downward trend, that would be a bad sign.)
- Well there's still more niche topics that are hard to sustain a community for on Lemmy due to the lack of population. I'd like to see that grow. Hopefully in time.
You know how on reddit people comment to tell you to google, argue, etc. Here they just answer the question or move on, it's wonderful.
- Like, they'll answer everything but your question, tell you how you're wrong and should do something else entirely, here they read your question all the way and actually answer it
Well, in your case, even if Reddit has 8 billions users, you still wouldn't be able to access it, so why worry?
- I can access, I believe I can create another account. I just feel like lemmy is more like me people
Suprisingly better for actual conversation, reddit would be like screaming into a void sometimes, any topic you're interested in if it doesn't already have a community, make one from a popular general purpose instance and start posting, people will reply and see it, and it'll potentially hit the front page equivalent letting more eyes see it. Reddit was no longer showing me interesting niches, I had to already know about it to find a sub and get it on my feed, so many interesting subs I only learned about because I got into the hobby outside of reddit have more potential to be visible on the main feed here. Reddit algorithm right now is a roller coaster, this feels more like reading a newsletter, old reddit.

Slow and steady wins the race.

I find this true of so few actual races.
- The longer the race, the more true it becomes.
It was our evolutionary success as a human animal. We were never the fastest, strongest or even the most numerous at the start. But working slowly as a cooperative community, we conquered every liveable space on the planet. We can do the same online.
- Persistence hunting corporate dominance, I can dig it
  
  Someone fetch me my spear

I finally made the move to setting up an account here and wean my reddit usage.

It's getting so bad on there, so many bots, trolls, and paid agitators. Plus the uptick in fascist apologists. Smaller communities with higher bars to entry produce better conversation, in my experience.

This place is so much better for actually discussing things.
The bots have really ramped up since Trump took office again. Seeing so many top comments with thousands of upvotes just gaslighting the shit out of frightened Americans, telling them they need to touch grass and everything is fine...it's so chilling.
- Yeah, I was starting to feel a bit crazy with how many were coming out of the woodwork with almost exactly that same wording, even in my city's sub.
Welcome!

Sounds like good news. Only heard about this place start of this year so glad to be in the numbers

Welcome!

Lemmy.ca signups per day if we go back to the start of the first exodus:

Wonder what happened in ~June of 2024. Summer signups?
- We saw a spike of users for the papaya snark community when they were banned off reddit, I think it's that.
Nice graph
Thank you for providing this informative graph! I will be saving it for future use.

That’s great to see we’re spiking a bit recently just not as much as the days of the Reddit api shutdown situation.

You could use this graph to investigate the incidents that have occurred with the user spikes.
- without a link to the source, we have no idea if this is information or misinformation
Link to source?
- I am the source.

You're welcome.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Lemmy determine active users differently now, as compared to then? I recall a .world post about that, contemporaneous to when active users spiked. In any case, I appreciate the new folks!

That's true, originally only users that posted or commented were counted as active. Then they changed it to count users who had voted as active, even if they didn't post or comment.

But I believe that change occured almost one year ago, in March 2024. You can see a big spike of active users at that time. Starting this January we've seen some really nice organic growth, although it's not nearly to the level of the API exodus. We still need more users, but it's really encouraging to see some solid growth after over a year of stagnation/slow decline.
Yes, back then you had to comment or post. These days it also counts users who vote within the timeframe as active users.
- I've always wondered why active-but-silent didn't count. If you bother to login, you're active to me.

Yeah, I can tell; I've had a sharp uptick in people picking arguments and then sticking their fingers in their ears.

No you haven't!
- I mean, if they drop a hot fucking meme like this every time I wouldn't even be mad.

numbers

Lfg!!!

Hey, where are you getting these stats from? I ask because FediDB is down.

Alternatively, https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats is still up
- Nice!
They’re from https://join-lemmy.org/instances
- Okay, for context, this means that Lemmy has gained 4.4K MAUs over last month.
  
  Not bad.
Fedidb has always had strange numbers...

It's no wonder when every other comment on Reddit is an obvious bot. Either the bots here are less obvious or they're not here yet.

What do you mean user adjective - noun numbers is a bot?
Beep Boop, Am Not A Bot... 🤖
- Show us a filled checkbox right this instant!

Fun times.

whee!!! let the rollercoaster climb for the reddit decline!

Cue the 'too the moon' rocket but with the btc logo removed and the Fediverse icon added.

👈 Hey!

Definitely above the threshold of immortality.

Do you have a graph for these numbers?

https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats
- Nice. The amount of Lemmy servers online are shrinking?

Noice, I wonder if Hexbear going down helped at all.

Tbh not a chance
- I feel like people like you are the main reason people stay far away from fediverse. Ya'll Tankies are just sick in the head, a cancer to communities.