this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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Technology
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If lemmy becomes as big as reddit will there be a workaround in place for this? Googling something without appending 'site:reddit.com' to the end is just worthless these days. I'm googling a lot less now. Will just adding 'lemmy' be enough without specifying a site?
Checkout the conversation here: https://lemmy.world/post/670532. This topic keeps coming up, so I'm hoping the solution I'm working on can resolve this exact issue.
There's nothing stopping google from indexing the fediverse. Arguably it's easier than indexing webpages.
It will work with any bigger instance because of federation. All communities with subscribers from an instance are available on that instance. Si site:lemmy.world, site:programming.dev, etc. will work.
We've got a LONG way to go before any site gets as big as Reddit. I'm just hoping between the fediverse and/or squabbles one of those will "win" enough to get a critical mass of users. I'm actually very happy with both, there is just not even a fraction of content compared to reddit in an hour (understandably so).
To be fair, the point of the fediverse is that despite them being different platforms, they can all communicate with each other seamlessly. Mastodon users can see and comment on this thread for example without ever leaving Mastodon. They can even make their own posts on lemmy without leaving Mastodon. So it really isn't necessary for a single platform to gain enough critical mass to overtake Reddit. Even on a singular platform it's technically made up of many different individually hosted sites that we call instances. So even if lemmy were to have more users than Reddit one day, it's an arbitrary place to draw the line. Why not claim that a single instance has to reach that critical mass instead?
That should not be the goal.
Have we learned nothing?
There's a balance. You're right that growth for growth's sake, linear and forever, is exactly what got reddit into this situation. That being said, the fediverse will still need a significant influx of users to increase content, especially in niche locations, to the point where the page feels fresh enough each day to make folks' home base.