Lemmy is slowly dying while Reddit is thriving

So, I’m going to stick with Lemmy. But I did check out Reddit the other day out of curiosity. I was disappointed/envious over the many active posts in my former favorite subreddits, and realized how much I miss that level of engagement. At the same time, I was also appalled at how terrible their mobile site is. I couldn’t even read comments because of how terribly they were displayed.

Ultimately, I’m hoping that Lemmy catches up in some capacity. I refuse to go back to Reddit, but really do want that type of community discussion again.

36

I am really a hardcore against corporations and Reddit is the worse. So if Lemmy dies I am not going back to Reddit no matter what.

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My mobile app (Joey) still works for me. I think it's because I'm a moderator on a subreddit. I occasionally visit Reddit, but not nearly as much as I used to.

3

I wouldn't call what reddit is doing "thriving". The experience of what used to make Reddit, Reddit (the deep focused communities) is already quite decayed and has been decaying for some time.

Curate your Lemmy communities better and make an effort to interact as much as possible. Lemmy always feels super dead if you don't actively look for new communities and instances to subscribe to, because the Fediverse is inherently in a changing state of flux of where the activity is. Lemmy does not auto populate your feed with a bunch of algorithm crap, you have to MAKE it show you what you want. I've built up a nice list of 40+ subbed communities and see lots of content.

30

Well said. And let's not forget the shitty power mods, ridiculous inconsistent arbitrary posting rules, shadow bans, and easily triggered hive mind that are all still on reddit.

9

It's not dying. It's smaller for sure but a social network doesn't need to be big or have a ludicrous number of users to be healthy. Many of the posts I've made have gotten 10x more engagement than equivalent posts on Reddit simply because there's less for it to get lost among.

Personal opinion, but I think generally the users here are nicer and more chill than Reddit. Again, simply because the sheer number of trolls is lower and I don't think bother as much when there's less people to piss off

27

I have not had that experience. Reddit has more users than Lemmy, sure, but I went on Reddit literally yesterday and most of the content was trash. Lemmy has some trash, but a lot less than Reddit. A much bigger ratio of good:bad on Lemmy than Reddit has been my experience.

23

That’s what I noticed when I first gave Lemmy a try: significantly fewer users, but higher quality content overall.

8
- There’s a closer knit community than Reddit due to the smaller size, and advertisements and paid agenda posts are few and far between. We have momentum and lot of potential- as long as Reddit keeps up the downward spiral, people will join lemmy and tell others about it. If you want to increase activity on lemmy, it starts with you! Remember to upvote and comment, and post something you found that was interesting, even if it’s to a community you don’t usually post to.
  
  7
I find that the quality of content is totally different here. The level of engagement is similar for me. Most of my posts and comments get about the same engagement as I saw when I was on Reddit, and often a better quality. There are some niche communities that just don't exist (yet), and there are some crowdsourced communities that don't really transfer without huge numbers of people (things like AITA, mildly interesting, oddly satisfying, etc.). I do miss some of those aspects, but the interactions and information here are just better and less troll-y.

2
Anything vaguely allowed near the front page is instagibbed by propagandbots, spambots, and users so stupid they can't be readily discerned from same.

Stick to subject-specific subs and it's not that bad.

2

Reddit is certainly busier. But is it better? Every time I peek back into Reddit I'm overwhelmed by ads and karma-farming reposts. Was it always that bad, or did I just not notice when I was immersed in it? Either way, I'm happier here.

14

Yeah I like lemmy way better. Never going back to reddit

5
- fuck reddit
  
  1
It's been that bad since before Conde Nast, but not always.

2
- Reddit hasn't been owned by Conde Nast in over 5 years. They're private with Advanced Publications (former parent company) as a major stakeholder.
  
  3
I would say yes reddit have more quality answers but also a lot of bad

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Well the people here are really weird, so there is that. Reddit has its issues but at least people there understand humor.

-7
- If they understood humor, r/whoosh wouldn't be so well known
  
  3
- Let me guess: “everyone is too sensitive you can’t even make a joke anymore”?
  
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Not really I think. Lemmy losing users in a slow manner may be true (probably is, if https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats is a representative site) but Reddit thriving, I'm not so sure. I'm only seeing that Reddit is in stagnation currently and I don't mean this in a negative way, it just didn't get new followers. If someone is more active on Reddit, please educate me about your experiences, because I'm only visiting just 1 subreddit basically for some minutes and that's all.

12

Lemmy losing users in a slow manner may be true

I think you see a clearer picture if you zoom out to before the spike in June: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=150 .

It’s a typical pattern for growing sites: there are sporadic spikes in new users, followed by a leveling-off where about half the new users are retained. So the trend over the past month isn’t a long-term decline, it's the tail end of the leveling-off phase.

[Edit: the above link doesn't work unless you manually remove the “amp;” to yield “https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=150”.]

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- That's absolutely true, actually, I think/hope in the same way as you do too.
  
  2
Lemmy is bleeding users, but post and comment count is still growing. I think the multi account migrations have settled down and people are getting used to the new UI.

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- If you're basing that off solely on the fediverse observer, that may be false. The "Average comments by day" graph is pretty misleading, since it actually shows all the comments that was made on Lemmy on each day. How do you perceive the density of the comments in practice?
  
  3
That site doesn’t seem to show Lemmy losing users.

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- Check onto "Average Lemmy Active Users by Day" and observe the monthly active users. It's really subtle, but it's a loss.
  
  3

Personally, I think that Lemmy hit rock bottom relatively shortly after the main Reddit exodus in early July, and has steadily improved since. And more than anything else, I attribute that to users leaving.

The thing is that at least some significant part of the people who have left are people who couldn't or wouldn't appreciate the threadiverse for what it is and instead spent their time whining about the ways in which it isn't the same as Reddit.

And honestly, good riddance to them.

There are always going to be people who can and do appreciate the threadiverse for what it is. Those who are already here will stay and at least some of those who haven't discovered it yet will, and will move here. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

11

if you want a 1:1 replacement for reddit like .world seems like it wants to be, cloning the interface (https://old.lemmy.world) and the subreddits (e.g. this one) then of course you you will find it lacking, it's the same thing but with only a fraction of the users. lemmy was not made for that, it was for disgruntled communists, you are on their turf

6

disgruntled communists, you are on their turf

XD

3
Got me! I'm a communist and very far from gruntled.

1

Let me prop up my complain. I look for an English community where I can ask questions about the language, and I found one. I put several questions there and have received zero answers in span of a month. Given that it is the largest such community here, I have no options as to turn to Reddit.

5

I’m sorry that happened, but that’s just one community. That’s not enough of a sample size to say anything about Lemmy.

5
- The only subs that are active are memes, politics and technology subs, everything else is desert
  
  6
- Oh please, we all realize this didn't take off as expected. Reddit has its grip
  
  0
Okay, now I have more of an understanding. For broad, general, casual use (like the way I use Lemmy) things are better here. For narrow, specific subjects (like what you need) reddit can still have an edge.

3
Which community? Remember, 1. Ask, 2. Ask someone who can help, 3. Ask until you get the answer you need.

1
Yeah that's absolutely understandable. Probably most of the Lemmy users here could easily present atleast 1 community which is pratically dead in here compared to Reddit, which he/she/they misses.

1

I really am missing the communities for specific games.

4

i wouldn't know, i haven't been back to reddit

4

By now, it’s become a point of pride. I get annoyed when someone posts a link to reddit. I’m like “Come on. Just show me a screenshot. I’m not going to that cesspool.”

2
- Yeah, it's joined Facebook and Twitter on that "do not click" list for me.
  
  You'd think that quitting cold turkey would have been hard, but it somehow just hasn't been.
  
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Isn't it?

Nope.

4

You can leave

3

wouldn't say so

2

It is official; Netcraft now confirms: Lemmy is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Lemmy community when IDC confirmed that Lemmy market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Lemmy has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Lemmy is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Lemmy's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Lemmy faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Lemmy because Lemmy is dying. Things are looking very bad for Lemmy. As many of us are already aware, Lemmy continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

FreeLemmy is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeLemmy developers Hurka Durr and Tum Tatee only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeLemmy is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

OpenLemmy leader Herp states that there are 7000 users of OpenLemmy. How many users of NetLemmy are there? Let's see. The number of OpenLemmy versus NetLemmy shitposts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetLemmy users. Lemmy/OS shitposts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetLemmy shitposts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Lemmy/OS. A recent article put FreeLemmy at about 80 percent of the Lemmy market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)4 = 36400 FreeLemmy users. This is consistent with the number of FreeLemmy shitposts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeLemmy went out of business and was taken over by LemmyI who sell another troubled OS. Now LemmyI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Lemmy has steadily declined in market share. Lemmy is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Lemmy is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. Lemmy continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save Lemmy from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Lemmy is dead.

Fact: Lemmy is dying

2

Wow that rant is classic!!

Found an instance of it from 2001!

(First comment in this thread)

1

If you liked working at startups this whole scene is awesome. I contribute a modest amount to the person doing the heavy-lifting from where I use The Federation.

If one is looking for a place to create communitas that only happens before The Enshittification.

Everything else after that is marketing and sales.

1

IDK Reddit part but Lemmy is so far so good.

1

Lemmy doesn't have videos and this is funny if you think about it

1

The lack of video support is understandable tbh in 2 ways.

Storing a bunch of videos are really costly for the instance owners

Direct Youtube play on Lemmy directly probably won't ever happen, since Lemmy uses an open embed protocol (opengraph) and YT doesn't or something like that. There was an issue about this topic on Github but can't find it.
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- That doesn't change the fact that this problem exists. Reddit's superior multimedia support makes it a more competitive social media platform.
  
  2
If reddit never introduced videos they wouldn't have the outrageous cost of hosting and serving them (which they do with third party cloud services) eating into their bottom line so much.

1

My experience so far has been:

"default" reddit, like /r/popular etc. has been worse, because reddit started using some form of "the algorithm" which pretty aggressively pushes controversial subreddits with high engagement, and those tend to be dumb and toxic. Amitheasshole, twohottakes etc. are the most obvious ones.
customized, highly selective reddit with as much crap from the frontpage as possible unsubscribed from is not significantly worse than a year ago, but then again, it was already pretty bad a year ago. Since the API changes I've had 3 people block me to get the last word in an argument, for simply disagreeing with them, without me being an asshole. This is quite annoying in a small subreddit where such a person posts regularly, but it may have just been bad luck.
Lemmy... Well, 3 things that I probably dislike about reddit the most, not because they're the worst things that happen there, but because they're so damn prevalent, are overmoderation (heavy handed deletions of posts and comment trees, unnecessarily locking threads that are even mildly controversial, things like banning people for ever posting in a controversial community etc.), strong american partisanship where if people realize you don't agree with them on everything with regards to society/politics/culture wars, they immediately assume you're from the opposite american camp and that you must have bad intentions, and finally simply people not being very smart on average.

Well, all three of those problems seem to be just as prevalent on large Lemmy instances, the first two even more in some places. And whereas on reddit many people understood that you're probably not realistically going to be able to create an alternative subreddit to some huge default with hundreds of thousands of users, so the "go make your own subreddit" copout is not very practical, here "go make your own instance" seems to be one of the default reactions to any criticisms.

That said, Tildes seems to be doing okay. It's even smaller and it doesn't really try to be a reddit alternative, but it's considerably smarter and more sane on average than both Reddit and Lemmy.

1