Honestly, that's fine - Lemmy is now a known alternative and best of all, has time to grow more naturally and be better situated for the next eventual migration (I'm a Reddit migrant myself).
Not to mention, I spend way less time mindlessly browsing lemmy—Reddit was like a compulsion. To the point that, when I knew I was leaving July, I was actually getting worried about my ability to do so. I never want to feel that way about another app. I get on lemmy, I browse around for a bit, but I don’t feel the utter need to keep scrolling. Some stuff interests me, some doesn’t…but the stuff that doesn’t is usually relevant to someone in my life. So I send it to them, and sometimes these are people I don’t typically talk to regularly.
All in all, lemmy has been a net positive in my life. I still get the app I can scroll when I’m looking to kill time, I can still write about stuff I care about, I can interact with other people…it’s the perfect balance for me. I don’t need that “everything all the time” shit. In fact, I’ve been trying to pull away from that entirely baseless desire in my life, which is nothing but a capitalist mindset. We don’t need everything. I don’t want to think I want everything.
But who, exactly, is supposed to create this “niche content” for them? I think this is something we underestimate—large swaths of people see themselves as consumers of quality content. It is not for them to bring in comments or interesting finds to the communities. This I think is what makes the internet ripe for centralization. You can’t be a non-paying consumer and choose your menu. You can pay with your behavior datapoints and get fads packaged to you, or you can help create an ecosystem where you don’t have to be spied on every click and tap of the day. Choose your path and make peace with it. The worst would be to help create content for a community and be spied while at it.
When Lemmy has a critical mass to support communities that aren’t the main ones the niche content will come.
It’ll just take time.
There’s no rush because reddit is not getting better.
Lemmy will only improve with more people who will come after each successive reddit fuck up.
Reddit didn’t start with niche communities, that was the tail end of years of community building.
You’d rather it be slow growth. The developers need time to tune the software.
Agree with you.
One thing I have always found precious for my 10+ yrs on forums like reddit and 3+ yrs on fediverse is how high quality conversations are by people who usually don’t obsess about numbers and publicity in likes and upvotes etc.
Genuine communities here on the fediverse will evolve at their own pace.
Yeah people don’t realize a ton of the niche communities are only a few years old, if that. Even 5 yrs ago Reddit wasn’t used as often for Google searches. Reddits popularity is recent.
That niche content is built up over years of the right person finding the right thing, which all in all is pretty rare, because only a percentage of thoses people will actually post and make their knowledge known. It's institutional knowledge, and institutions arent built in a day.
It will happen. It will be slow. It's how it works everywhere. The community needs to prove itself after all!
To Reddit? No. They fucked up RIF, and that's how I browsed.
Yeah, dozens of us remain! Dozens!!
Yah the content is becoming less and less. But it was bound to happen since most posts where how Reddit sucked.
I've only gone back for a minute since College Football has resumed, but even then seeing all those ads in formerly clean Oldreddit made me feel gross. Comfortable content will happen here in time, I believe it to be true
Anustart?
I still use rif. Patch it with revanced
Oh fuck, now that I know this it's actually tempting me to use it.
Both suck.
Reddit has the base and the niche communities and the activity, but is scummy for its own reasons.
Lemmy has the structure/organization but none of the niche interest activity that kept me on Reddit for so long. Plus it's got all the weird pro china shit and an even worse problem with the hive mind bullshit than Reddit.
With the death of third party apps, I would say that my time that was formerly spent on Reddit is now spent 10% still on Reddit, 15-20% on Lemmy, and the rest just isn't spent on that sort of thing anymore.
I've been reading more, maybe a 2-5% increase on Facebook of all places, going to the source for news (Axios, Washington Post mostly), gaming with the computer time, maybe a 15% increase on YouTube time...started streaming more shows and stuff, and spent more time outside, even in the sweltering summer heat.
So basically for me, Lemmy has turned out to not be a reddit replacement, and instead that time has just been split up many different ways.
I do miss Reddit, and wish that Lemmy had indeed been a workable alternative, but it's just not. I won't go back to Reddit because I accessed it 95% on a mobile 3rd party app...but just because I won't go back doesn't mean that Lemmy is just as good.
As time goes on, I'm starting to realize that the time I still spend here is mostly because I want it to be better and I'm trying to be active long enough to see that change happen...but the longer I just kill time here waiting for it, the more I see shit I don't like.
I would expect that while I'll still keep my account open, I'll probably be done with Lemmy by the end of the year.
I feel most of these issues are just due to how small the userbase is.
And that a sizable portion of that small user base are batshit extremists
Agreed. I see a lot of the same names around various different subs. My only complaint is the sports subs have a lot fewer folks and thus less engagement on GDTs but otherwise everyone seems to be more real and less toxic as a community, hopefully that vibe stays as the numbers grow.
I just see too much of the same posts and I'm not sure if it's a user issue or not sometimes i reopen the front page after 3 days and 25% of the posts I've already seen plus a lot of posts are about reddit anyway :(
6/10
I commented that China's state sponsored hacking probably contributed to their new processor looking surprisingly like competitors'. The responses... were disappointing. The China thing and stale content have been my only issues. Stale posts are a problem, but has meant that I'm done earlier and put my phone away sooner, which isn't great for engagement, but makes me feel better.
I mean we can build niche comtent, just going to take a lot of time. For now lemmy is refreshing because most are here toconverse on topics and not 100s of trolls like
I mean we can build niche comtent, just going to take a lot of time.
And in the mean time?
Also "can" doesn't mean "will". And most, myself included, aren't going to be willing to just...hang around...for months or years or however long that takes to happen. And every time that happens, the timeline gets pushed to the right.
At some point it just won't happen.
For now lemmy is refreshing because most are here toconverse on topics and not 100s of trolls like
Hah! Good one.
In my experience so far here, there's significantly better odds of running into trolls on Lemmy than Reddit.
Sure, in (some unspecified amount of) time, Lemmy might get more and varied and more populous communities, and it might see an overall improvement in the broad makeup of the overall user base...but for now it's less diverse, less busy, and less friendly than Reddit, and unfortunately, those deficiencies are self-perpetuating.
It's wild how digitally lost I've been since I left reddit. And they deleted one of my favorite subs so there is no going back..
It's funny you mention Facebook. I deleted mine years ago, without grabbing all the photos I had, which I regret big time.
I had hundreds of folks I knew in real life on there, and I've considered going back a lot in the last few weeks.
What's a reddit? I used baconreader but that doesn't exist anymore.
Baconreader gang rise up.
And do what?
BaconReader was good but Boost was god-tier.
And Apollo was streets ahead of Boost.
HEY, there were tens of us! I honestly didn't know about any other app until far too long to admit...but that was the only one i liked, so once it was gone so was I. I do appreciate the diversity of posts here, a LOT more than the algorithm of reddit (or any other social media). I have my setting at all, new and there is some wild shit going on around the world. Except for the russian/chinese simps, this is pretty good. (FWIW, since i stated that I should explain myself: anyone who thinks any single current government is better than another is completely compromised by that governments propaganda)
To your last point. If that were true then it follows that all governments are exactly as good (or as bad) as each other. You don't seriously believe that every single government on earth have equal merit though? Plenty of people have unjustified opinions of certain governments but that doesn't mean that every opinion is unjustified and there are no better/worse governments.
If I asked you which government was better, Sweden or North Korea, it's not exactly a stretch to say there is an objective answer. A governments job is to manage the nation for the people, and some countries do a far better job of that than others.
Lemmy reminds so much of the beginnings of Reddit when I started there over 17 years ago.
Totally. I can only see it improving from here. It's clear there are tons of committed users, one's that will continue posting for years to come.
I am one of them.
Honestly kinda cool that I recognize a few recurring people
The cat heavy content is a throwback lol
A bit of downtime is good. Gives me chance to work on Sync until the next wave joins.
The lack of niche communities is one thing, but the real long term drag is the fact that most of this place is just c/Linux or c/linuxmemes even if it's just c/memes or literally any community.
Can't go anywhere without some "Microsoft bad, Chromium bad" content or comments clogging everything up. Keep that shit in the places it belongs or you're going to see more people abandon the site as they realize it's all just the same people with the same three interests in every place.
That and it really feels like the worst of reddit came here, I've seen people get downvoted to hell over obvious misinterpretation of their comments by people who have almost zero reading comprehension skills.
Lemmy needs to fix its shit.
It's also why so many of the memes are boomer memes. I'm sorry, but a lot of the Linux userbase are 40+. I'm close to that myself, so I'm not criticizing or saying millennials shouldn't be welcome, I'm just saying we also need an infusion of younger people here to keep things fresh and make sure the stale stuff gets tossed into the garbage where it belongs.
So many tankies, and an unhealty obsession with foss and anything foss related (if you don't live off the land, you're part of the problem yadda yadda).
Disc: I love linux, Firefox, etc and use them everyday (but also use chrome, amazon, etc), but ffs stop the preaching and shaming.
I'm playing both sides so I always come out on top.
on top
this wasn't funny when my girlfriend said this to me :(
Me: I am the niche content now. Starts up 10 communities and actually posts to them.
Like, I need help, I can't keep this pace of posting up forever... Please contribute!
I’m not a creator (certainly not very good at it anyway) but I do my best to engage with content and comment. Especially those lonely, lowly posts with little traction.
I admit when I join a community and I frequently see only one poster, I pretty much assume it’s dead and move on.
Lemmy does have the unfortunate problem, that even if you sub to a community, you wont necessarily see the posts from it if you also sub to something big. The bigger community just completely drowns out the smaller one in your feed.
Hopefully this gets addressed in how sorting works, but for now it's preventing small communities from getting engagement.
I'm sorta gaming the system by posting regularly, and just, more. I'm basically edging on spamming, but this results in there always being a post fresh enough to be in people's feeds. This leads to discovery, if not engagement. I also have alts across the big instances, from which I sub to my own communities to increase the reach of the community when it's new. They have to manually be subbed to by a first user, to get federated to new instances and show up in all, otherwise.
This is how I got [email protected] off the ground. Approaching 1k subs now.
It's a bit disappointing that most of the communities for specific content are so inactive on here, but I still prefer it to the types of banal, waste-of-time, repetitive content and comments that plague reddit and have caused my eyes to roll in a tailspin.
Do I really have to choose one or the other, though?
I think there's a sweet spot in terms of population lemmy hasn't reached yet. Reddit has surpassed it long ago and is now shit due to too many people.
I like motorcycles and assholes, I have a hard time not going back to reddit.
You're gonna love motorassholes.
I am just never going back, lemmy has less content of course but the comments on what is here is just a totally different level, reddit just feels dirty and corrupt in comparison,
Yeah I really miss my niche porn
Honestly same. But I like all the SFW stuff
I'm really trying to be positive, guys. I'm daily driving Lemmy, watching all the content here. I've only logged to reddit once thinking "at least old.reddit.com works", and it does, but after clicking on posts it goes back to new so I said "screw it" and I'm sticking with Lemmy for now. But all communities I've followed on Reddit are either small, non-existent, or just bots reposting Reddit posts. I know about this site, and I'm guessing a lot of you too, by googling "reddit alternative". Hate on Reddit will only get you so far. Maybe I'm wrong here, but in my opinion main problem of Lemmy is a lack of reach. I like Lemmy and I'll definitely stick with it, but I don't think it will be as big as reddit. Lemmy needs something that would make people go to it, and "it's not reddit" is not enough.
It's only new, in time it will have more original and niche content.
We'll see.
How we're going to encourage people to be here? Reddit screwing up may not be enough.
If you log in there's a setting to keep you on old Reddit. Not that I think we should go back, just if we have to at least it can be semi tolerable.
It's good for me, keeps me online for about an hour before I go out and get an irl life
Great benefit that many overlook!
Hopefully the next exodus, Lemmy will have a better way to boost visibility of niche communities in active/hot timelines. Reddit was good at doing this, not sure how they did it. Right now it's really hard to grow small communties unless you explicitly keep checking on them. So it is a problem, but there is a solution that hopefully we'll figure out soon. Also we have pretty mature phone apps now, but the desktop site is pretty lacking unless you use one of those alternative front ends.
The only reason I left is removal of third party apps. The more Lemmy users shit on the rest of it the more likely I am to return occasionally on desktop cause it makes me think people here dont want the same things I want, or actually have problems with the things I want.
I check out reddit every few days and tbh lemmy has the same amount of mainstream content. The only difference is that reddit niche subs are more active.
I think the fact that anyone can make the same community on a new instance diminishes niche communities more. If I pick a game on reddit ill find 2 or so instances with lots of use. On lemmy there will be 10 communities all mostly abandoned.
You can feel a difference on reddit though. Quality content and content numbers are greatly reduced from even a month ago.
I used to use Sync for Reddit. Now that you can use Sync for Lemmy, it's easy for me.
With the exception of a few of the "grad" communities, Lemmy has just been a whole lot less toxic. I don't deny occasionally slipping back into reddit for exactly two subs that don't seem to have any chance of taking off in Lemmy. But Lemmy has really killed my reddit urge permanently. Every time I enter reddit, I see a message trolling or attacking me or whatever.
I constantly see super mega niche communities here. To the point that it is completely absurd, like a "memes with black and white pictures, no text and 2 emojis" community would be. What is up with that? Everyone on Lemmy has his own "community" or what is this nonsense?
There are a few very active users who have started up their own favourite thing, and are single handedly posting content to them, breathing life into the subject on lemmy.
I mean sure they exist, but they also have at most 2 posts. I understand that Lemmy is still growing, but god damn does is feel empty compared to what Reddit offered.
But that is the issue: If your have fewer people, you can not split them up over much more communities.
I can't go back. I was ina ban purge and I wasn't even a mod.
You'll be back, soon you'll see, you'll remember that you belong to me 🎶
Nah. I think I'll stay.
I, a manifest Redditor, have sat down, and shall refuse to go back to the empire. I have satted, and shall remain seated.
For all those returning to the grave where the Snoo once stood, good luck. I hear the bots are awful this time of year.
I will probably leave eventually. I won't go anywhere else. I'm pairing down my social media. More specifically the ones that i use too much. I want to keep it for a few more months and see not some kind "shiny new toy" thing.
Isn't Lemmy itself niche?
People are leaving Lemmy for Reddit?
Hells no. 13 years of Reddit and I'm done with the place. Even if Lemmy burned down in flames I'd still not go back to the poison place called Reddit
I'd love to see more niche communities, but honestly I mostly just accepted it as is. I needed less time on social media anyways so it works for me.
I needed less time on social media anyways so it works for me.
I think the rest of the world needs what you need as well. 😉
Hear me out, a good portion of Reddit posts are reposts anyways so what if we did a one time import of Reddit community top posts of all time to seed communities so there's a place people feel more encouraged to post to? I don't like bot posts generally, but if it's a one time thing I think I'd like it if the communities here had some extra seed content to browse so you wouldn't reach the end so quickly like you do now.
There is at least one bot that does this, there are comments on the posts explaining how to request more subreddits to be added to the seed list
I'm a filthy casual but I'll be staying here. Reddit is a prime example of what happens when corporations get to decide what free speech is, and what happens when companies founded with good intentions sell out.
I'm pretty much off reddit entirely. Popped back the other day to ask a question to a sub that doesn't exist here. I'm on this too much anyway but there little to zero content a lot of the time.
I'm trying to think what it is that I used to comment on in reddit. I can post the exact same articles but it's the comments that make the feed and the comments are because of the range of people.
Numbers are what make it good and ultimately bad as well. You need users to create the content but then you get too many and it becomes too big.
Gotta be a sweet spot and ai in all it's magnificence should be able to work it out
Reddit was in that sweet spot from like 2008-2013
I remember the early days where if you found a fellow redditor in the wild it was novel and fun. It felt like we’d found the best thing since sliced bread, and most people still hadn’t heard of it. I never was into the “narwhal bacon” shit, but I definitely had a couple fun interactions overhearing strangers talking about posts and asking (comedically/exaggeratedly) “are you a.. REDDITORE?!”
I only found it 2017 so I must have missed all of it
Nah. Once Apollo got the cold shoulder I nuked my account and have not returned. I occasionally read stories about it here out of morbid curiosity and hope I’ll get to watch the Hindenburg going down, but otherwise that’s an ex and I’m not inclined to go back and chat.
Lemmy just about keeps me here. It's a little anemic, but not due to lack of niche, but lack of normies.
Plus Lemmy hasn't turned out to be full Nazis like voat did. I find more on Lemmy than Mastodon.
Edit: Fix! I clearly meant Lemmy not Lenny.
Is Lenny your Uncle? Are you okay? Where's he keeping you?
Argh. Fixed. Thanks.
I haven't seen anyone really saying that. Reddits a cesspool of hyper moderation. They'll ban their own users and Lemmy will literally be default
I'm not leaving lol
There is a singular community I've been returning to Reddit for. Thankfully a (very) small subset has mograted here, but the day to day conversation just isn't there. I definitely need to interact, comment, and post more on the community here though. Gotta help it grow and all that.
Staying on topic and not commenting about James Franco. Yeah, this isn't reddit.
I find lemmy is more active in smaller communities compared to reddit, where any sub less than 500 subs feels dead. On Lemmy a similar sized community is bustling.
Reddit never removes people from the subscriber list AFAIK. So over time, the subscriber count becomes extremely unrealistic. It might claim there's 500 people, but if the sub was created years ago, many of those 500 people probably are inactive. And god knows how many bots might subscribe to a sub for some reason or another (bots obviously don't need to subscribe, but I'm sure many do, since otherwise anti bot measures could notice that they never subscribe to anything). Reddit really should show active subscribers in the past month only.
Lemmy is just so new that if a community has 500 subscribers, that's probably pretty close to the monthly active figure (though with the exception that quite a lot of people have multiple Lemmy accounts because there's been constant reasons to switch instances).
Though also, if you see a Reddit sub with only 500 people, you know it's dead and you should look for a different sub to post in. On Lemmy, 500 isn't utterly awful and also many front-ends only show numbers for your instance, so a community with 500 subs might be a decently sized community (though who can tell?).
The only subs i go back to in reddit are the giveaway subs i joined, and i use my pc browser when visiting. Its all lemmy on my phone.
that's OK with me 👌
I've been permanently banned three times. Once for answering a question honestly and politely about a sensitive subject, my opinion was "wrong". The second was for sharing public news about a public persona and joking about the news (I won the appeal on that one), the third for threatening violence, in a conversation thread where I did NOT threat anyone, and certainly did not threaten violence on them or anyone else.
I wish I was permanently banned there faster because the memes here are much spicier!
