Why would you want that? I think of lemmy as an old message board. I think it's better that way.
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2025
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Anything that gets that big turns into a shithole. Enshitification will find a way. So just don't.
I fear that Lemmy will not scale properly, popularity will exponentially increase the load. Itβs basically actions multiplied by instances
The nature of the fediverse means bad actors could run rampant, jumping instances and usernames to turn the place into a shitshow.
The only reason it isnt happening already is that we arent worth the trouble.
There's admittedly some things I miss from Reddit like bigger niche communities, but I would never want this to get as popular as reddit, because then you'll end up just getting the same problems as reddit down the road and we'll all have to migrate again. And who wants that?
If we could somehow keep the bigger Communities the same size they are now, while growing niche Communities, that would be ideal. It's logically impossible though.
Porn.
Like any type of media, you win by getting porn on your side. Bring the NSFW content creators over and everyone else will follow.
Yeah the porn here is kinda lacking.
There's a whole instance dedicated to porn, isn't there? At least there used to be, is it still live? My instance is defederared from it so idk.
It worked for VHS
Why would we want to do that? Please don't.
Why would we want to do that?
So that we can discuss more niche hobbies with other people who love that hobby.
There only thing Reddit has over Lemmy is their awesome niche subreddits. Outside of that they have nothing and being more like Reddit is not something we want. With attention comes heavier moderation.
+1
Reddit can keep all the gigasubs. Let the niche fandoms trickle over hereβ¦
I don't think the majority of people here would be happy if that happened.
Why?!?! Donβt you like it here? You realize the quality degrades as more ppl arrive?
Dont be a traitor, keep your mouth shut.
Bigger isn't necessarily better
That's not what she said :'(
This.
Yeah, sure , but I believe there is a Goldilocks zone we are not yet in
I understand the motive, I too am on some niche communities that sometimes didn't have posts for months. For that i use reddit (but the old interface). Now let's see your question.
No, we can't make lemmy as popular as reddit, but we can turn lemmy into a reddit twin, and make it popular, by pushing only one instance like .world.
The social media that popularised fediverse the most was mastodon, and yet it's because they pushed mastodon.social as the default, making a large part of the userbase think that mastodon is only mastodon.social.
People do not even notice things more complicated than buttons "join", "login", or "post". They are lost on join-lemmy.org because they don't know why they should choose a server, read description, understand whatever is federation, and they'll prefer going back to their comfort zone.
But hey, social media experience enshittifies as the userbase gets bigger, and i came here by fleeing reddit so please don't
Keep the light alive as Reddit further enshittifies
- Be friendly to other Lemmites. Encourage them to post and comment.
- Post and comment whenever you can.
- If you have niche hobbies or interests, try posting about them into an appropriate community.
Social networks and message boards get more popular as they get more users. Bring friendly and posting regularly should help us maintain the user base.
I personally enjoy that Lemmy isn't as popular as Reddit. It feels more home-grown and friendly because it's not as large. That being said, contributing to and engaging with the content you enjoy is a good start. Finding a niche here can be great and there are tons of interesting communities to contribute to!
Network effects are quite difficult to overcome. Lemmyβs largest influxes of users have been when Reddit does something unpopular enough to warrant people looking for other places. Same was true when Reddit became popular because Digg made bad decisions, or Facebook when MySpace did.
The answer is that Lemmy almost assuredly will never be as popular, but at least its future is not dictated by the profits of a company, or censorship imposed by or on that company.
The best we can do is make Lemmy a viable alternative (it is) and ensure it is of a high quality.
But why ?
Our goal is to make Lemmy the best place it can be. Whether that recreates another platform or not
Why?
I'd say concentrate on quality over quantity.
Exactly. I sort through the top 6 hours or top daily. Thereβs not a lot of posts, but they are all high quality ones.
Reddit is the opposite. I have to go through trash to reach a few good posts. Bigger =/ better
Ooooh, no thank you.
Have you seen that place? Gives me the icks.
Why do people always go for Reddit as this comparison? It's not even the most popular social media. Is it because the question "How can we make Lemmy as popular as Facebook" makes it clear why that isn't something the users would want?
I imagine it's because Reddit is closer to the format of Lemmy and it's something we're more familiar with. I also wouldn't have known that Facebook was more popular because it's not something that anyone in my circle uses, but a lot of them use Reddit.
Its like did no one use forums before Reddit? NeoGaf, Linux Questions, planet quake.
I would rather not. Lemmy is not Reddit.
lemmy is better than reddit, popularity will ruin it.
Keep bringing it up on Reddit.
When I'm on Reddit, which is only if I fully exhaust myself on Lemmy that day, and I see someone complaining about Reddit, I make a point to let them know about Lemmy.
I donβt want lemmy to become as popular as Reddit
we dont.
You canβt
Big L take
which are all you make, always.