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Is lemmy growth coming to a halt? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by Elcapitan786@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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Lemmy world was growing at a decent pace leading up to July 1st, then had a big influx following the API deadline. However the last week in particular has seen a decline.

Engagement still appears to be the same, although a little lower than the start of the month. A few of the other instances i have been checking follow a similar pattern.

Do you think we will continue growing at a steady pace, or do we need another big trigger to get users to migrate? For Mastodon, it seems there's a big trigger every other week to drive users away from Twitter, but with Reddit, the revolt seems to have quietened down considerably.

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[-] yoyolll@lemmy.world 146 points 1 year ago

It does feel a little dead here. Right now it’s mostly memes, meta discussions, or Reddit hate. And the crowd is a very specific type of hyper aware internet dweller (myself included).

Reddit isn’t worth using without third party apps, and it’s the only social media I used before Lemmy, so I’m spending a lot more time off my phone nowadays. I only check the daily top on Lemmy once a day instead of compulsively every time I touch my phone. Guess that’s a good thing.

[-] elbarto777@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

That's a very good thing.

And to be honest, as selfish as this will sound, I wouldn't want Lemmy to grow too much - unless the eternal september crowd can be contained.

[-] yoyolll@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago

I disagree. While I do like that the discussions and top level comments are not nearly as homogenized as Reddit eventually became, I’m really missing the niche communities. I wasn’t subscribed to any large subs on Reddit, so my feed was basically just a curated list of discussions for my hobbies. No memes, news, pop culture, internet drama, or politics. Right now, that’s just not possible on Lemmy due to the low population.

[-] martoon@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago

Give it time. Lemmy is still very fresh, but I'm confident smaller niche communities will keep popping up and it will eventually add up. Region and country locales seems to be doing well.

[-] CoderKat@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah, the lack of many of my favorite niche communities makes me constantly wonder if I should just "suck it up" and go back to Reddit. I miss so many of them. If I wanna discuss a particular TV show or video game, often I just don't have much of an option here, cause the community specific to that TV show or game is very likely dead.

We also don't yet have many interesting text post subs that I liked to read on Reddit, like AITA, Best of Legal Advice, Best of Redditor Updates, Hobby Drama, etc.

Similarly, my local city sub is pretty dead (and never shows up on the front page cause the sorting algorithms suck). So I barely have any local interaction anymore! I met real life people on Reddit and it was great for getting advice from others who live in my city.

[-] yoyolll@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I’ve had the same thought, but sucking it up would mean using the official Reddit app or old Reddit on my phone/tablet (at least until they kill that, too), which are both just too annoying of an experience to be worth it to me. It’s not a principle thing, it’s a usability thing.

For the time being, I’ve just accepted that it’s gone and I’ll miss it for a good while. I’ve been browsing some old school forums for my random hobbies (Gear Page, Hard Forum, Steam, Fresh Loaf etc.), but otherwise, I’ve found other things to occupy my down time until either Lemmy’s smaller communities take off or something else fills the anonymous-niche-hobby-social-media void. Got me some cool books and Picross on Switch.

[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Give it time

[-] elbarto777@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Understood. That's why I said:

I wouldn’t want Lemmy to grow too much

[-] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 year ago

I think I get your point but from a larger perspective, Lemmy (amongst several others) is just a means to an end:

Free the internet of corporate control.

A steep goal but a worthy one if you ask me.

So I say make it grow as big as possible even if that means it is not as intimate as it is right now.

In a large federated place, there will be infinite amounts of smaller/niche hosts to migrate to.

The idea imo is that we need to focus on our goal here: stop the infinite brainwashing happening through mobile devices.

Feel free to disagree. Its just how I see it. Have a good one.

[-] elbarto777@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I don't disagree. You have a point. If I don't like a community, I can just move elsewhere.

[-] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

Exactly. What I feel we might be suffering from is the status quo. We‘re so used to being in walled gardens that we assume homogeneity. But this will not be the case if there are thousands of instances. You then might have an instance that is manga themed or retro themed and so on with themed versions of the other places etc. sounds like fun to me.

But the bottom line is that we need critical mass for this since that ensures visibility.