this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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...relative to Reddit's size?

I see so many posts and comments voicing disappointment with Lemmy's lack of massive expansion.

I too want to see Lemmy gain more users, but I do not want it to grow to Reddit's size. If Reddit is the yardstick, I'd say that a population that large attracts a lot of negative behaviours; degeneration of discourse, amplification of echo chambers and hive mind behaviour, etc...

I started on Reddit in 2010 and found that by 2016 things were really bad in comparison. A fun and engaging site was experiencing an obvious devolution that persists to this day, accelerated by Spez's enshittification of the platform. Obviously the fediverse insulates us from that occurring here but I think you get what I mean.

Do you you think Lemmy is too small? I don't. I've been here since the great migration last year and have had a really good time. I see a lot of familiar names in the comments on a daily basis. It actually feels like a community here. I guess I just don't understand the fixation on the size of Lemmy's user base. Curious to hear your thoughts.

[EDIT] Thanks for all the responses, everyone! Lots of perspectives I hadn't yet considered.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

I see lemmy as a sort of test-balloon: Can we overcome network effects? And in a larger (and maybe slightly hyperbolic) sense, can we become a rational civilization or are we doomed to fail as a species?

On a civilization level we are currently seeing a massive downward trend due to news and social media become completely... well wrong. And it's getting worse. The main media aspects of the internet have done the exact opposite of what we wanted it to become. And most of it is because it's run only for profit.

So lemmy and the fediverse is a pretty good attempt at trying to break that and replace it with something more democratic and sane. But I think it's likely that lemmy is going to fail to achieve that. The synergy through network effects is just too strong. Reddit, youtube, facebook, google, twitter will never be replaced. At least not without a massively funded alternative (e.g. tiktok that funded creators for a while) and that just ends in the same way again. Seeking profit instead of serving the users is a kind of insanity for our "means of communication".

Of course that is a bit hyperbolic and lemmy is fine and fun to use as it is, but I wish it would fully replace reddit as a sane alternative.