this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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It's a war of attrition. Slow and steady will win this race.
Lemmy, just like Mastodon has seen spikes followed by users leaving. But every spike leaves more users on Lemmy/Mastodon than previously.
Truthfully, in the event another Reddit Exodus, which will happen, we need to try and be more of a content-oriented system during that era. Making more posts and focusing on adding to niches.
Reddit is about Niche communities and Content Saturation. Lemmy isn't really about that, but it can be for moments at a time to pull users in. At some point we'll reach a critical mass of users that leads to easier justification for new users to join.
We just need a group of extremely disorganized and disagreeable people to organize and and agree on this.
oh no
Reddit also gets a little bit worse every spike, too. There are few mods remaining on Reddit who are doing anything more interesting for their communities than basic spam removal. Automod does all the work when all the largest subs just repost the same content and fake stories anyway.
It's not like going to implode or anything anytime soon but the quality (from my perspective at least) has totally flatlined since June because why would anyone in their right mind invest creative energy into cultivating a unique community? I think that eventually a Lemmy community will pop up that simply couldn't exist on Reddit and will serve to illustrate why I believe this model is better.
yea probably a illegal one
LOL I was thinking something with a structure and functionality that's impossible to have on Reddit. But you're probably not wrong either.
There is still some new content (rocket league videos come to mind) that is hard to move to a federated platform, because video streaming is expensive.
Another hurdle is getting game devs to treat Lemmy instances for their games as official points of contact, which is definitely something reddit still has that Lemmy doesn't, unfortunately.
I got questionable game jam games if you want them lol
I think Lemmy would either need to find a way to wean Redditors off of their dopamine machine or replace that dopamine machine long-term to sustain an exodus from Reddit. Either that, or Reddit will need to break their dopamine feedback loop. There are some cracks showing, and that might have already killed the platform in the long term, but it'll keep going from pure momentum for a while. Maybe as long as months or years.
Seems like there's more sexists and racists than I used to see over there, which is definitely offputting. I've found communities that are supportive of thoughtful discussion are more appealing, and Reddit definitely lacks that lately, outside of some small, relatively niche communities.
Jokes on you, I get dopamine boosts on lemmy as well.
I like your optimism but theres not a lot of great examples of the little guys winning lately. I'm not sure exactly how, but I predict things end badly for Lemmy. Just seems like a more likely outcome in today's world. Guessing reddit does ok everyone just ends up a bit more miserable than before. Sorry for being a turd, I just think your prediction is statistically unlikely.
Except Lemmy isn't a single Lemmy.com that will one day run out of money and implode into nothingness.
Lemmy, Mastodon, and other ActivityPub based Fediverse Networks are muliti-node systems.
This is just pure nihilism without a hint of thought put into it. Nothing short of the world exploding and human annihilation will kill Lemmy, And even then, there are bots.
Bonkers. There is a critical mass that keeps people willing to support it. I can run an original Quake server and find a few people to play with, but distrubuted multinode systems don't mean a damn without a critical mass user base. Lemmy is far from bulletproof.
This is Apples to Oranges.
Quake is dead because modern and frequently updated options exist, even 1-1 like Xonotic.
The alternative to Lemmy is Reddit which will only continue to enshittify.
A more apt comparison is Bullentin boards.
Bulletin boards still exist in the modern era, and are in frequent use, despite their age.
I'm not suggesting this social media format will die, it's just likely that a corporate entity will develop a lemmy alternative that becomes more popular and causes fatal atrophy or Reddit will get new leadership and Lemmy hopefuls will cross back over if content development here is slower than the collective patience. I'm pro Lemmy FYI, I just don't understand the unbridled optimism about it's future.