Please indulge a few shower thoughts I had:

  1. 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.)

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  • crunchycircuit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    140·
    2 years ago

    Honestly, I think that best thing to do is just pick one or two communities that you really care about and invest a bit of your time. Make a post or two, have some back-and-forth with a friendly person in the comments. You don’t have to be a moderator to help build a community. Even just taking 30 seconds to make one post would be good enough, and might encourage someone else to make a post.

    I was always more of a lurker on Reddit, but I don’t think that’s really gonna be enough if we want this place to at least get to critical mass.

    • Ghostface@lemmy.worldEnglish
      192·
      2 years ago

      Well said, but I will say reddit felt more like being out in public. So you kept your distance and didn’t really interact, but here feels more like being at someone’s house that you know. At the moment. The federation aspect is a different wrinkle but ultimately will lead to a better experience overall. No ads is a huge bonus!

      • crunchycircuit@lemmy.worldEnglish
        91·
        2 years ago

        I agree - my level of engagement on Reddit dwindled with every unpopular decision Reddit forced on its users, and towards the end I had stopped engaging entirely, because it just felt like I would be interacting mainly with bots and hostile users. You’d constantly see bots steal others’ comments, people calling them out to no avail, and knowing that Reddit didn’t give a shit cuz it was engagement numbers to them either way really discouraged any chance of healthy discourse.

        Rage-baiting might be a good short-term solution for boosting engagement, but allowing or maintaining that level of hostility across the site just tires people out and drives them away.

    • RespectMyAuthoriteh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      2 years ago

      I still have the community I moderate (!fitandnatural@lemmy.world) set to mod posts only, because I’m the only mod and don’t want to risk someone posting something bad while I’m not on Lemmy. We really need an approved user feature like Reddit so that vetted community members can also make posts in communities where “anyone can post” isn’t a good option.

      • Die4Ever@programming.devEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        Couldn’t you toggle the mod posts only option on and off based on your availability? Maybe make a pinned post explaining it and write in the times it will be available inside that post?

      • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.mlEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        That seems like it’d be pretty easy. Basically just like giving someone a moderators role but with extra tier of hierarchy below normal moderator.

        Seems like a nice idea TBH … I’m generally all in favour of leaning into lemmy’s ability to create sorta blogging spaces that naturally federate (and therefore are easy to aggregate).

        Lemmy and ActivityPub seems to have (nearly) everything to recreate a new blogosphere, but with federation beyond its own border over ActivityPub, comments, voting, aggregation, sorting and search built right in.

    • iquanyin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 years ago

      i joined and am using memmy, both this week. cant see how to post, only can see how to comment.

        • iquanyin@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          how do i get to the community page? and is that its name? do i look for “community page” or is it called something else? (i chose a random place to ask, its fine if you’re busy or don’t like to answer such basic stuff, i will eventually figure it all out.)

          • nieceandtows@programming.devEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            If you tap on the list button at the top left corner, you’ll see list of your subscribed communities. You can tap on any of them to go to that community page. You can also tap on the community name on a post in the main feed and go to that community. Lastly, you can also go to the search page and search for a community and go to its page. Let me know if you’re facing any difficulties.

    • Blamemeta@lemmy.worldBannedEnglish
      66·
      2 years ago

      Yeah. Ive picked /conservative. Ive been posting a mixture of fluff and actual posts. Early days, but it seems to be picking up speed. Just post, it works!

        • new_acct_who_dis@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          2 years ago

          I’d check his post history before engaging. He’s trying to rebuild a spammy, dishonest right wing space in Lemmy.

          He’s free to do so, but it’s just going to bring in trolls, bots, bad faith arguments, and extreme posting to sell shit.

          I get that it’s inevitable, but let’s be careful what we’re encouraging.

        • Blamemeta@lemmy.worldBannedEnglish
          32·
          2 years ago

          Thanks! I hope you successfully build whatever community you’re building too!

        • Blamemeta@lemmy.worldBannedEnglish
          12·
          2 years ago

          Trying to get engagenent, letting other conservatives know we exist, that sort of thing.

          • new_acct_who_dis@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            You admit that you’re posting what are essentially lies in order to attract conservatives? Y’all really are just saying the quiet part out loud.

  • gxgx55@lemmy.worldEnglish
    92·
    2 years ago

    My problem with Lemmy is the lack of activity in niche communities. You’re right that there needs to be a critical mass and arguably Lemmy has it, but only for the most mainstream, generic type of content. It doesn’t have the mass to sustain any sort of niche, outside of maybe tech related topics because of the way the userbase is slanted.

    I find myself going back there often because of that, but I hope that the userbase for generic content enough to sustain and grow, from where more active niche communities can spring up.

  • MdRuckus @lemmy.worldEnglish
    47·
    2 years ago

    I follow damn near every community on lemmy that I followed on reddit. I follow 97 communities on lemmy with all communities active and none with 0 posts. I left reddit immediately and haven’t looked back. All the news, whether political or tech related, I get from lemmy. I think people just haven’t found the right communities. You have to put in some time to find them since you may have 5 or 6 with the same name. But, once you do, you should be good to go.

    • o_oli@lemmy.worldEnglish
      171·
      2 years ago

      Comparing the two communities, reddit nearly always has way more quality content and news for me though for the time being. Often even with big news it’s just not here on Lemmy at all. Many posts also have 0 comments and you just wouldn’t see that on Reddit. Once Sync can create posts I will probably start x-posting more from reddit to lemmy for communities I am most interested in.

      For now I think I will start browsing Lemmy and then visit Reddit for anything I missed. Keeping my posting and commenting over here mostly because I’d like to see this place grow.

      • DancingPickle@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        2 years ago

        for me, reddit nearly always has way more quality content and news for me though for the time being

        It’s not just you.

        As constructively as I can put this, reddit has been building community and goodwill for many years. Lemmy has only recently become an option and it’s done wonderfully in the short time it’s had.

        The challenge is the catch 22. People go where there is more content, they produce content there, and then there is more content there. There no vacuum, reddit didn’t disappear. It became toxic and people apparently care less about avoiding toxicity than filling up on dank memes.

        All I can say to that is we all need to be the change we want to see in the world. Adopt a Lemmy First mentality, and go to reddit only to pick up legacy slack. Continue the conversation from there over here. Link it up.

      • SwallowsDick@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        2 years ago

        Yeah, I wish there was more reposting from Reddit, because that’s what a lot of communities need tbh

    • Elivey@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 years ago

      Well it sounds like you weren’t into subreddits like sewing, knitting, or plant goths… Little less userbase there…

  • teuniac_@lemmy.worldEnglish
    36·
    2 years ago

    Next time reddit screws up in a high profile way, and they will screw up, the fediverse will be ready.

    And it doesn’t seem entirely impossible that our Elon Musk fanboy Steve will screw up again.

    I won’t be surprised to read in the future:

    • Reddit Introduces Its Own Version of X’s (Formerly Known as Twitter’s) Blue Checkmark
    • Backlash After Reddit Strikes Exclusive Deal to Provide Trainingsdata to OpenAI
    • Reddit Introduces Paid Membership Options for Communities
    • Something Money Grabbing Reddit Related
  • Erismi14@midwest.socialEnglish
    35·
    2 years ago

    Reddit has always had changes that made people want to leave. Removing CSS was the first that comes to mind. Now that lemmy exists it could be seen as a new platform to jump to every time reddit does something dumb or anti user. I have high hopes for lemmy

  • legion@lemmy.worldEnglish
    331·
    2 years ago

    Lemmy has enough user activity to fulfill my time-wasting needs.

    There doesn’t need to be one website that EVERYONE is at. The Web didn’t used to be so damn consolidated.

    I don’t give one shit about “Lemmy vs. Reddit”. I care about Lemmy having active communities to engage in, regardless of what is happening on some other website.

    • insertfloppydiskhere@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 years ago

      Yes this is my thinking as well. Before reddit I was more than happy participating in forums on subjects I enjoyed. I had want I wanted. I almost have that here as well. That’s success in my eyes.

  • MIDItheKID@lemmy.worldEnglish
    311·
    2 years ago

    “You could have half the comments on that post, and frankly the quality might go up, not down.”

    This is probably my favorite part of Lemmy. The comment section feels more meaningful, and not a landfill of garbage posts. Additionally, if I make a comment, there is a higher chance that it will be read and responded to, so it feels like I am actually engaging with a community, and not just chucking my thoughts into space and hoping they land on a planet.

  • hamid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    253·
    2 years ago

    To me there is no vs. My web browser has tabs and I can have multiple ones open at a time. It is cool to have more things, I don’t need to commit to anything like an app or website.

  • Sygheil@lemmy.worldBannedBEnglish
    20·
    2 years ago

    Reddit has now checkmark/verified or whatsoever they call like any other centralized social media. Extreme cringe

    • pedz@lemmy.caEnglish
      6·
      2 years ago

      It depends on your instance. I have account on lemmy.world and it’s indeed been having stability issues. However some other instances seem a bit more stable, like lemmy.ca.

      I’ve seen posts on lemmy.world asking for more voluntary admins because of the sudden growth. And apparently they are also the preferred instance to be attacked.

    • fresh@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      5·
      2 years ago

      It feels like it’s up all the time when I use it. Must depend on the instance. Even Reddit was frequently down for maintenance and other issues.

  • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.caEnglish
    17·
    2 years ago

    One problem I see:

    You can google site:reddit.com whatever But if you google site:lemmy.world whatever then you’re losing a significant amount of results. To get good results, you need to know which Lemmy instances is likely to have your answer, and with communities duplicated over different servers, that can be tough.

    In the end I find I prefer this federation model, although I’m not sure although I’m a bit concerned about funding it if it scales up to the size of Reddit (same with Mastodon vs twitter).

    • adeoxymus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      2 years ago

      This has more to do with how bad Google has gotten, such that you’re forced to add restrictions like Reddit to get rid of SEO sites and get useful answers. A proper working search engine would show these (and any that are found in Lemmy) high up by default.

    • zephyreks@lemmy.caEnglish
      7·
      2 years ago

      Google should be finding searches with “lemmy” keyword, but it isn’t at the moment.

      Lemmy needs some SEO people.

      • new_acct_who_dis@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        I don’t think lack of SEO is the issue. There’s just not enough content and brand/domain authority to get results from here high in SERPS.

        There might be something fediverse related that would affect performance in search, but I’m not knowledgeable enough about this setup to speak to it.

        I think it’s just lack of content, general awareness/interest, and longevity that’s keeping Lemmy low in search

    • o_oli@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      I’m sure the search problem will be solved somehow. Like all the content is on each instance so its just a case of it being accessible and indexed by google I guess?

      • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        I’m sure it’s already being indexed by Google. But people like to add site filters like site:Reddit.com or site:stackoverflow.com to prevent google from barfing up a bunch of garbage results on the front page, when they know that’s probably where the results they want will be. There is no way to add a Lemmy-wide filter to a Google search, because Lemmy instances are all different sites

    • astral_avocado@programming.devEnglish
      45·
      2 years ago

      Welcome to the old Internet. Decentralization is good in a way, people will have to try harder instead of having everything spoon fed to them by Google.

      • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.caEnglish
        81·
        2 years ago

        I’m not personally a fan of that brand of elitist gatekeeping. Having it be harder to keep out the plebs is not a look I think we wanna get behind.

        Decentralization is important, but the goal isn’t to keep people out.

        • astral_avocado@programming.devEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          I guess I didn’t exactly mean it as elitist gatekeeping, I see it more like people are being abandoned by major websites and this is the result.

      • o_oli@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        2 years ago

        People having to work harder is good? No I disagree with that entirely.

        Part of what makes reddit so amazing is the amount of amazing knowledge and answers you can find from google.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    181·
    2 years ago

    I hope Lemmy never gets to be the size of Reddit. We’ll have some level of Eternal September eventually, but please not at that level. I really hope not. It’s overwhelming unless you’re in one of the niche subreddits.

    • Aux@lemmy.worldBannedEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      If it never gets to the size of Reddit then it’s destined to become 9gag with porn.

    • lnsfw3@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      12·
      2 years ago

      It was fine on June 12. It didn’t have the polish that decade-old Reddit apps had, however.

      I’m guessing Jerboa development has kicked into overdrive and it will soon catch up.

      • LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        5·
        2 years ago

        You can practically bet on it. Everything related to decentralization is being incentivized to push new releases. Personally, I couldn’t be happier about it.

  • Yerbouti@lemmy.mlEnglish
    15·
    2 years ago

    The main difference for me is that I feel like I’m part of a global project, not just a product in some big tech’s ecosystem.