I wouldn't worry about Lemmy having as many users as reddit in the short term. Success is not just a measure of userbase. A system just needs a critical mass, a minimum number of users, to be self-perpetuating. For a reddit post that has 10k comments, most normal people only read a few dozen comments anyways. You could have half the comments on that post, and frankly the quality might go up, not down. (That said, there are many communities below that minimum critical mass at the moment.)
Lemmy is now a real alternative. When reddit imploded Lemmy wasn't fully set up to take advantage of the exodus, so a lot of users came over to the fediverse and gave up right away. There were no phone apps, the user interface was rudimentary, and communities weren't yet alive. Next time reddit screws up in a high profile way, and they will screw up, the fediverse will be ready.
Lemmy has way more potential than reddit. Reddit's leadership has always been incompetent and slow at fixing problems. The fediverse has been very responsive to user feedback in comparison.

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[–] Hazdaz 11 points 1 year ago

Lemmy needs to take care of a few very important things if it wants to see its numbers grow.

One of them is the seemingly endless server issues. No idea what is causing them (I can only assume an influx of users). I think many will understand and put up with some problems in the short term. They understand the site is growing and lots of former Redditors are here which take up resources. But that patience is only going to last so long, especially more causal visitors who just want to see an interesting news article or a funny meme and then go about their day. They'll just head back to Reddit if things don't improve.

Another issue which Lemmy needs to take very seriously is the problem with Russian trolls and other foreign agents. As the US election draws near, there will be more and more of these people posting on here. They'll post pro-Russian stuff or anti-Ukraine stories. They will try to spread anti-Biden and anti-Democrat propaganda. Or they will try more subtle methods like simply trying to get people to simply not vote at all by proclaim "bOtH PaRtIes ArE ThE SaMe". I simply do not know if Lemmy has a mechanism to combat this. I'm already seeing posts like this and I don't know if mods can ban these people or if there is a way to tag them and have their accounts looked at. Lemmy seems to have a free-for-all attitude toward users and posts (at least as far as I have seen) and that might have worked well when this community was much smaller, but the more it grows and attracts bad actors, rules and procedures will need to be updated to combat this.

[–] Reygle 10 points 1 year ago

Fantastically written. I agree.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Was there ever really a gap? I got fed up with reddit and came right here and am very satisfied. I don't seem to be having a problem at all.

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