I’ve been using Lemmy and learning the ropes of the Fediverse and I’m really impressed - especially using wefwef which has replicated my Apollo experience very well.
There are posts and everything, just a lack of comments to read for hours on end is the only issue I have, but I believe that with more users this really could be the replacement.
Are you guys thinking the same thing? Is there evidence yet that Reddit is slowly failing and power users are migrating?
I mod a 21 thousand member sub on Reddit and opened a similar one here. I put several relevant posts to get things started and let people on the sub know we are here with a tutorial on how to sign up and explanation on why it is good to have an alternate.
I now have about 20 members, a few coming each day. However no one has posted or replied at all.
Another community I created has a similar result.
I know there is a threshold of activity that stimulates more activity, but so far its not happening. I’ve started many active subreddits, including one in the 1% with half a million subscribers. I’m not new to community building. I’m honestly concerned.
I want to encourage everyone to post and comment in the little communities you have joined. You will be contributing to this whole project when you do.
I don’t think it’s the start, but I think something’s happening. The internet has just been through an incredibly stable period for 10 years or so, but I that finally came to an end a year or 2 back. There have been lots of smaller social media platforms popping up for a while now, and I think the landscape is finally becoming less stable and more dynamic again.
I hope it is. I don’t yet feel strongly about the fediverse/Lemmy specifically just yet, but everything online just feels… off, right now. So many sites all somewhat self-destructing (twitter, reddit, youtube, etc) all seemingly at the same time. I’ve been around for quite a lot of change as far as technology/internet goes in general, but I feel like it’s felt relatively stable over the last 10 years or so. I feel like I experienced a ton of very quick change from like 2000-2010 or so, and then not much after that (just some new social media sites and whatnot, but not really big changes overall?). Now it sort of feels like it did back in the 2000s, which is giving me hope that maybe things are about to change in general!
I feel like the fediverse might take off, but not because of Lemmy.
I was a deep lurker on Reddit and a RIF user so when shit hit the fan I heard about Lemmy.
However I never use Twitter, but before learning about the fediverse because of Lemmy I already heard casual mention about Mastodon. I feel Mastodon will be the first to reach a really wide audience and once the public is comfortable with using federated networks then Lemmy might gain mainstream appeal.
Regardless of what happens, something has to give and I’m excited to see the old titans drop to their knees for once (and Twitter doing a faceplant).
A federated internet feels like a good balance between free speech and moderation. And decentralized non-profits feel like they’ll be more stable than the venture capitalist sugar daddies Silicon Valley has relied on.
I’m going to copy my post from elsewhere here:
Not only did we let them monopolize niche knowledge we also let them completely supplant forums and other methods for discussion on the web while letting them slowly poison the quality of discussion overall through the wide spread use of bot manipulation. Imagine an internet with reasonable, easy to access, informative and kind discussion. That is where we will trend without highly corporatized outrage driven content algorithms and it’s not just a completely different internet, but a completely different world.
Amen
I don’t know about power users or whatever, but social media as we know it is literally imploding. It’s kind of stunning, and I think it’s the perfect opportunity for federation to take off.
Well ok, Twitter and reddit are down for a round, but we still have Instagram, TikTok and ugh… Facebook.
But could lead to users realizing that these aren’t public service institutions to take for granted, but companies that can fold and take your network with them.
Facebook/Instagram (Meta) is one I am not sure how to get a read on. They are branching out a lot, but I have no idea what they’re doing to remain profitable. It seems like they’re in “Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” mode, hoping that they find a new niche before their sizable warchest from the 2010’s runs dry.
They severely downsized once this year already and I have a feeling that won’t be the end of the story. Wouldn’t surprise me if they sell off/shut down Oculus in the near future.
Tiktok, meanwhile…well it’s already undergoing enshittification (it is the subject of that original essay) and old people are starting to use it, so I feel like it’s only a matter of time before it’s no longer cool with kids and they lose a sizable chunk of their revenue stream and content.
Didn’t they spend insane amounts trying to convert literally everything to run in VR - like the whole of Office 365 for example. I can’t imagine them getting any return from that investment - why would someone at work want to wear a heavy headset instead of looking at a screen?
Oh it’s imploding alright, just like that billionaire submarine
Too soon?
You weren’t around for Usenet. It was great, then social media took over.
Lemmy reminds me a lot of the way the internet used to be- smaller, independent communities with more real engagement and less of a content firehose. With so many instances, if you want something, you have to seek it out or start it yourself- with the added benefit of federation keeping everyone connected.
I’m really optimistic that this will get critical mass. I think the concept of federation is great, and I like to think we’re at the forefront of a whole new phase of online community.
It’s giving me strong ~2013 reddit vibes, which I always thought was around the peak of the site to be honest.
I think the community system starts to break down once the platform gets too big. As reddit grew, all of the big r/all subs lost any sort of identity and became the same amorphous community copy/pasted over and over.
The downside is that we don’t have as much niche content yet, but we’ll see how it’s looking in a year or so.
It’s the classic “Eternal September”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
Plus everything is just a bit broken and requires some figuring out. I’m definitely pretty tech savvy, but I’m having a hard time imagining non tech savvy people figuring out how to sign up and access these communities, at least not in the current state of things.
The hardest thing about lemmy was signing up and figuring out how to access it and log my account into mlem but things are mostly smooth after that sure there are some bugs but i feel like i am learning quickly
The only big disadvantage i see in lemmy other than the sign up process is the lack of a dedicated video player but it’s understandable because they cost too much to maintain and run
I would like to see a connection to PeerTube. I’m not exactly sure how it works but it might work here
No, this is going to be its own niche. And that’s fine.
The great thing about Reddit is that a lot of people are there.
The worst thing about Reddit is that a lot of people are there.
I don’t think the fediverse is ever going to be massive, but that’s okay! Smaller communities usually lead to better interactions. I’ve only been here a day, but the thing that jumps out at me is this place doesn’t seem hostile.
Early days on social services have always been my favorite. In a weird way, I’m glad Reddit led me here.
The fediverse is a return to something bigger, not something new. An influx of users will hopefully help things get to where they should be.
Email never went away, but for some reason has been the only federated protocol with real staying power so far.
The plethora of fully fleshed out apps in the next few weeks, and the ability to have instances that operate independently from the main ones will insure at least a significant popularity imo.
I don’t want to jinx anything but really hope this platform will continue to grow. love the atmosphere right now!
It’ll come and go like all the rest. AOL, AIM, IRC, message boards, myspace, livejournal, digg, fark, slashdot, reddit, lemmy…???
I worked at bebo, does anyone still know it today? 😂
Yes! I got suspended at school for drawing a rude picture of my teacher on the “Wall” feature bebo had haha
For the most part I agree with you - the best I can hope for is that the fedi philosophy persists in some way, even if it’s still a little niche. I don’t even expect any of this to become 100% mainstream.
Assuming Lemmy actually takes off as a reddit replacement, it likely will. Most of the time when a new service supplants the old, they take a huge chunk of what made the previous service great and fixes the parts that made it not great. Forums made Usenet groups better, reddit made forums better (fuck forum comment formatting honestly), and Lemmy will hopefully make reddit better!
I am cautiously hopeful that fedi will become significant in a while.
I don’t know that this will get as huge as reddit was, but the number of comments I’ve seen here has doubled/tripled in the past few weeks, to the point where if Lemmy doesn’t ever grow much more than this, I think this is a sustainable mass of people right now to keep a good network effect going
Lemmy adoption will help grow federation. Lemmy is fairly easy to conceptualize as an end-user, and aside from the bleeding-edge UI/backend bugs, it is easy to use. Common users are unlikely to prefer federation due to attachment to existing communities in non-federated social media, and the 1-more-step required to properly understand instances to get the most out of Lemmy. If certain Lemmy instances hold the majority of the weight of accounts and communities, it will lead to emergent centralization towards specific instances which isn’t good for federation. Persuading people who are used to centralized design not to immediately register for the largest Lemmy instance will be a long-standing conundrum for spreading out federation.
