I first joined Lemmy back during the big Reddit exodus of last year. I like many others wanted an alternative to Reddit, and I thought that this might’ve been the one. I made two accounts, one on lemmy.world and another on sh.itjust.works, in the June of last year that I used on and off for about 4 months.

At first Lemmy was exciting because it was so active. There were so many new users who were enthusiastic about turning this platform into a genuine alternative. There was a communal effort to create and interact with content, and for awhile it worked. Lemmy was truly interesting during the summer of last year. However, this stream of dedicated users started to slowly decline.

A lot of people hoped that if they were active, they would attract and retain more users to this place to the point where the community would foster interest specific communities like Reddit, but that never happened. After a few months, a lot of users lost interest and went back to Reddit where the userbase is so massive that there is an active community for just about anything.

With this reverse exodus back to Reddit, Lemmy ended up with the same groups that were active on it before hand: political extremists, tech nerds, privacy enthusiasts, and shitposters. To be fair, all these groups are larger now than they were a year ago, but that’s all this platform has to offer. If you’re into any of these things and primarly these things then Lemmy can be a good alternative to Reddit, but for the general masses? Lemmy is just not good.

For example, a NBA post on the NBA subreddit can get you thousands of interactions in a couple of hours. An NBA post on here will maybe get you a dozen over the course of a couple of days. The only content that will gain any traction here are tech news, political propaganda, and maybe some memes. I don’t see this changing any time soon. Even if Reddit implodes, I still think Lemmy will remain a niche platform. I think this evident by the fact that this platform hasn’t really progressed in a year.

  • Johanno@feddit.orgEnglish
    0·
    11 days ago

    Well well well.

    This is a weird way to see it.

    You have definitely less people here than on reddit. And the kind of people that even consider leaving reddit because of the reason we left and then chosen lemmy are usually mostly tech nerds. Other people don’t care and stay at reddit or twitter or go to the Facebook clone threads.

    Your goal here should be information, fun and entertainment.

    I personally also read reddit aside to lemmy, but I first go to lemmy and then to reddit. Yes reddit is bigger and has a more active community but it is mostly toxic and ads infested. Without revanced I couldn’t stand it.

  • Onno (VK6FLAB)@lemmy.radioEnglish
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    11 days ago

    I am part of the Reddit exodus. I’m here because I have no interest in promoting or supporting the atrocious policies that now govern Reddit.

    The pace here is different, but the interactions feel more measured.

    Based on being online since 1990, I’m comfortable with being an “early adopter”, even though I’ve only been here for a few months and Lemmy is five years old.

    Will Lemmy survive? Who knows. The horse and buggy didn’t, neither did Yahoo!, MySpace or Google+, but here we are nonetheless.

    I like it here.

    • Gorilladrums21@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
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      11 days ago

      I mean good for you, I’m glad you’re happy here. But here’s a question for you, do you honestly think that this platform has the potential to be more than what it is currently? Platforms come and go, true, but it’s very rare for a platform to actually appeal to the general masses. MySpace at its peak had 90 million active users, Google+ had 200 million users, Yahoo still has around 700 million people use its services. While these sites ended up being failures, they still reached mainstream status. I don’t think Lemmy will die, but I don’t see it becoming a mainstream alternative to Reddit. I see it as an upgraded version of Voat. It’s a platform that will remain niche unless something drastic changes.

      • Onno (VK6FLAB)@lemmy.radioEnglish
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        11 days ago

        I think that the missing link for the fediverse is the user interface that most users see.

        This is oxymoronic given that the original Reddit looks eerily similar to Lemmy today, but it’s not just looks I’m talking about.

        Moderation and usability tools, bots, blocks, filtering and spam control need to go through several iterations before we can actually grow this community.

        Search is another issue, as is post deletion. Right now a post vanishes, but all the stuff hanging off it is still there. This makes for a complex user experience.

        Finally, Lemmy appears to be run by developers who appear to be interested in their own issues and regularly appear to dismiss issues raised by users. This is not sustainable.

        I consider myself a user of the fediverse before I’m a Lemmy or Mastodon user. We have a way to go before this settles down.

  • zecg@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    11 days ago

    I thought I liked it and that it had enough users, thank you for setting me straight.

  • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.netEnglish
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    11 days ago

    I don’t think it is failed. It has reached self-sustaining levels for many topics. It will need further growth to make smaller, niche topics self-sustaining. Whether this growth will take place is an open question. I know my instance is growing in terms of activity, but I’m not sure how others are faring.

    But as long as it isn’t shrinking, I think it’s well-positioned to absorb more growth as users discover it or become disillusioned with Reddit or other sites in the future.

    • Gorilladrums21@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
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      11 days ago

      I think a big issue with Lemmy is that I think there’s a lot of people who become disillusioned with it, just like how a lot of users became disillusioned with Reddit. When users join this site, they’ll immediately notice that there’s nothing outside of extremist politics, privacy focused tech talk, and shitposting. Unless they’re interested in those topics specifically, a lot of people would rather either just go back to Reddit where there are active communities outside of these topics or find another, more active platform. A lot of people thought that Voat was going to rival Reddit when launched, but it ended up being a niche hub for extremist politics, tech talk, and shitposting until it shutdown. Now Lemmy is definitely better than Voat in every aspect, but I’m not sure how it can over come that big hump that will allow to appeal to general public

      • chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.netEnglish
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        11 days ago

        There’s also the problem that sadly Lemmy is filled with vocal users with skewed view of the world, and they tend to be extreme polarizing. The “if you’re not one of us, who firmly believes the world should work a certain way, and if you’re not willing to shoot yourself in the foot with a shotgun to prove it as a point, then you’re one of them; you should get the eff off of Lemmy and crawl back to Reddit” kind of way. They’re so scared of losing that pedestal that they’re going to go out of their way to alienate anyone who doesn’t drink their koolaid and push them off the platform so they can remain dominant. Sadly, these people also never really learned much of the real world, so those that are more experienced / educated gets pushed off the platform, and we end up with a bunch of weird superstonk culty kind of vibe everywhere.

        I find myself more and more just make a comment and don’t look back. It’s quite literally futile and pointless trying to expect any discussion of any actual sustenance. You wonder why it’s just shitposting… well this is why.

        • mctoasterson@reddthat.comEnglish
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          11 days ago

          This summarizes it pretty well. Two things can be true at once. Reddit sucks ass and I haven’t gone back since the API changes. Simultaneously, the default Lemmy experience is extremely offputting to all but certain subcultures. Not everyone is a antiwork activist, Arch Linux evangelist, open socialist, or actively transitioning. Totally fine that all these groups have their communities, but it gets kinda old seeing 90% of the feed filled with these topics.

  • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    11 days ago

    If you don’t like Lemmy, you already know where to go. Enjoy Spez, the ads, the selling of your data to train AI, etc…

  • rrrurboatlibad@lemdro.idEnglish
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    11 days ago

    Meh, it works for me. I like it here more than reddit. Sorry that you haven’t found your groove. It toom me a while of finding the right things to subscribe and right folks to follow before my feed felt fun and interesting. I use Lemmy as a jumping off point for rabbit holes that are interesting to me

  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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    11 days ago

    political extremists, tech nerds, privacy enthusiasts, and shitposters

    Dude thank god

    I miss my old nerd internet. I won’t say you’re wrong for wanting something that isn’t that, but I personally wish it was more that way than it currently is. SDF or mander is honestly a lot closer to how I like the culture and interactions to be, than Lemmy.world. I was super psyched when I came on and there were all these communists and science weirdos.

    for the general masses? Lemmy is just not good.

    For example, a NBA post on the NBA subreddit can get you thousands of interactions in a couple of hours. An NBA post on here will maybe get you a dozen over the course of a couple of days.

    Honestly, when sports started showing up on the main page of Reddit it was confusing and alarming to me. I recognize that I am the weird one here (from the POV of the ordinary person society), but I much prefer just having my nerd stuff and having it be unencumbered by any normal person stuff

    I think we actually have exactly the same view of Lemmy and its accurate position in relation to most normal people, just disagreeing over whether that is or isn’t a good thing

  • KazuchijouNo@lemy.lolEnglish
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    11 days ago

    You might be right, Lemmy is not for the masses… I would consider myself a tech nerd, privacy enthusiast and shitposter; so migrating from Reddit was the best thing to ever happen to me. This place feels like a real home where I can share my interests with people who are incredibly helpful, kind and passionate about what they do. This place is a heaven for people trying to escape corporate and mass media. And I agree with you, Lemmy is a failed Reddit alternative, because it’s not a Reddit alternative, I don’t see it like that anymore. People here are genuine, I love that <3

    • Today@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      11 days ago

      Not a tech nerd or privacy enthusiast -just an old mom who occasionally shitcomments. I like it here.

    • land@lemmy.mlEnglish
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      11 days ago

      Exactly. On Reddit you get roasted for asking a simple question like wtf. Lemmy is the way.

        • KazuchijouNo@lemy.lolEnglish
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          11 days ago

          Are you suggesting that they are individuals? I mean, have you ever seen every Reddit user in the same room? Exactly! they are all the same 3 people replying to themselves (or so they seem to me).

  • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    11 days ago

    Don’t underestimate the power of shitposting.

    That said, the Fediverse products are still behind in features, polish and ease-of-use. The mainstream prizes these surface-level things more than any others. It will take years of development still to fully catch up in that regard. So, it’s the long-haul.

      • Cloudless ☼@lemmy.cafeEnglish
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        10 days ago

        I disagree.

        • Mbin’s terminology (inherited from Kbin) is annoying. Thread vs post vs magazine, boost vs upvote etc are unconventional and annoying.
        • No default sort option. Every time I want to see new posts, I have to manually select “new”
        • User instance and community instance are hidden
        • Difficult to manage/view subscribed magazines
        • Image upload dialogue is confusing

        Lemmy has alternative UI such as Voyager and Photon, they are way ahead of Mbin in terms of look and feel.

        What do you like about Mbin’s UX?

  • echo@lemmings.worldEnglish
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    11 days ago

    I’ve been noticing a lot of Reddit’s undesirables making their way over here. Same whiny little shits whose only purpose in life is to be trolls.

  • morphballganon@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    11 days ago

    You are entitled to delete your Lemmy app of choice and return to the corporate-approved Reddit™ content-consumption experience.