Why Does Nobody Use Lemmy?
This is not going to be a blogpost about "Why do people still use Reddit instead of everyone moving to Lemmy?". I noticed that even with Mastodon users, who already understand and like the advantages of decentralized platforms, the usage of Lemmy is extremely small, and more people use Reddit. Most of them haven't even heard of Lemmy. To be fair, the Reddit usage also seems to be fairly low.
Carlos Solís likes this.
PriorityMotif
in reply to squirrel • • •iopq
in reply to PriorityMotif • • •tal
in reply to PriorityMotif • • •I don't generally like the Twitter model and rarely use it, but I will say that one thing that it does do well, better than the Reddit/Threadiverse model, is very rapidly assembling information about a specific, temporary topic.
Like, the Reddit model is about letting a community assemble over time and letting people find their way there and moderators be chosen and all that. That works quite well for a lot of things, and lets people with expertise in the field arise and all that.
But let's say that there's a huge natural disaster and people are putting up video clips from their cell phones and stuff like that. They can coalesce around a hashtag or a couple of hashtags pretty quickly. Relevant material from people who have had no contact with each other and maybe no time to assemble a community or anything gets drawn together. Other users retweeting content help highlight it. The topic probably won't be active for long. It can be really useful for a rapid setup and teardown scenario.
Of course, that's really mostly following a hashtag, rather than a particular us
... Mostrar másI don't generally like the Twitter model and rarely use it, but I will say that one thing that it does do well, better than the Reddit/Threadiverse model, is very rapidly assembling information about a specific, temporary topic.
Like, the Reddit model is about letting a community assemble over time and letting people find their way there and moderators be chosen and all that. That works quite well for a lot of things, and lets people with expertise in the field arise and all that.
But let's say that there's a huge natural disaster and people are putting up video clips from their cell phones and stuff like that. They can coalesce around a hashtag or a couple of hashtags pretty quickly. Relevant material from people who have had no contact with each other and maybe no time to assemble a community or anything gets drawn together. Other users retweeting content help highlight it. The topic probably won't be active for long. It can be really useful for a rapid setup and teardown scenario.
Of course, that's really mostly following a hashtag, rather than a particular user...
I also dislike the "short comment" model that Twitter uses (though over the years, the comment length has been increased and workarounds added), but one thing that it does help with is to help deal with inexperienced users unfamiliar with quoting etiquette. In email or in traditional forum systems, it's conventional to quote a bit of relevant text before responding to it. This requires knowing syntax for doing so and when it's appropriate. Twitter deals with that by forcing everything to be broken up into bite-size chunks as a property of the system, so someone responding to something is forced to respond to only the relevant bit. I think that that probably helps make Twitter more-approachable.
SMillerNL
in reply to PriorityMotif • • •toothpaste_sandwich
in reply to SMillerNL • • •Exactly. And with the advanced web interface on Mastodon or an app like Moshidon or Manfred, you can create custom timelines that show just a collection of hashtags.
I use that a lot—exclusively, really.
MimicJar
in reply to PriorityMotif • • •Exactly! I'd be curious to see the reverse poll, asking Lemmy users "Why does nobody use Mastodon?" (and include Bluesky and Twitter in the poll.)
I use Lemmy (and in the past Reddit) because topic based conversation is what makes sense to me. Anytime I try to use Mastodon or Bluesky I lurk for a bit and then just come back here.
gandalf_der_13te
in reply to PriorityMotif • • •PixeIOrange
in reply to squirrel • • •schnokobaer
in reply to PixeIOrange • • •im_fine_sandy
in reply to PixeIOrange • • •I say this in all of these threads: more users does not mean a better experience.
Instead, focus on making our communities the best they can be.
Tywèle
in reply to im_fine_sandy • • •Eq0
in reply to Tywèle • • •Pamasich
in reply to PixeIOrange • • •tal
in reply to squirrel • • •I'm somebody!
Zachariah
in reply to tal • • •I’m nobody.
Also: Happy Cake Day!
tal
in reply to Zachariah • • •remon
in reply to tal • • •flamingos-cant (hopepunk arc)
in reply to squirrel • • •trxxruraxvr
in reply to flamingos-cant (hopepunk arc) • • •tal
in reply to flamingos-cant (hopepunk arc) • • •eremophila
in reply to squirrel • • •HAL_9_TRILLION
in reply to eremophila • • •Meatwagon
in reply to HAL_9_TRILLION • • •As long as instance owners moderate, the trashy people will be forced too flock to instances that allow that type of behavior and then we can block those instances individually.
I left Reddit because of how the moderators got pissed on, not the community. I just never went to /r/popular and enjoyed my life. My mod tools were removed from me and I can't be assed to get their shitty app. I'd rather put my time somewhere that I'm not being used for free labor while also being sold as a product.
HAL_9_TRILLION
in reply to Meatwagon • • •Die4Ever
in reply to Meatwagon • • •GardenGeek
in reply to HAL_9_TRILLION • • •After all this community started with a few hand fulls of reddits banned political extremists which tended to be the most annoying part at reddit (at least for me).
New users at lemmy learn pretty quickly to ignore/ban pricks.
I'd hope we get more content (and again advise anyone alread here to share their interests by posting in the dedicated communities).
HM King Charles III DG FD
in reply to eremophila • • •BooBees
in reply to HM King Charles III DG FD • • •mysticpickle
in reply to BooBees • • •HM King Charles III DG FD
in reply to mysticpickle • • •Frosty
in reply to HM King Charles III DG FD • • •eremophila
in reply to HM King Charles III DG FD • • •HM King Charles III DG FD
in reply to eremophila • • •zecg
in reply to squirrel • • •MimicJar
in reply to squirrel • • •I agree that finding communities can be confusing, but I don't think the problem is the naming.
For example on Reddit if you wanted to talk about video games you'd look at /r/gaming. However over time, since that was a "default sub", it became a bit of a mess and instead /r/Games was the community to have real discussion about video games. But of course over time that too became a bit of a mess and /r/TrueGaming was the best place to talk about video games. In fact for a long time /r/True was a common way to find the better community.
Of course the name of a community might be confusing to an outsider. On Reddit if I'm a fan of Game of Thrones there is /r/GameOfThrones, but what if I'm looking for something a bit more meme worthy, well that's /r/freefolk.
And that's true even on Lemmy. What if I want Star Trek memes? Well that's !tenforward@lemmy.world
I think discove
... Mostrar másI agree that finding communities can be confusing, but I don't think the problem is the naming.
For example on Reddit if you wanted to talk about video games you'd look at /r/gaming. However over time, since that was a "default sub", it became a bit of a mess and instead /r/Games was the community to have real discussion about video games. But of course over time that too became a bit of a mess and /r/TrueGaming was the best place to talk about video games. In fact for a long time /r/True was a common way to find the better community.
Of course the name of a community might be confusing to an outsider. On Reddit if I'm a fan of Game of Thrones there is /r/GameOfThrones, but what if I'm looking for something a bit more meme worthy, well that's /r/freefolk.
And that's true even on Lemmy. What if I want Star Trek memes? Well that's !tenforward@lemmy.world
I think discoverability is something that can be improved. Of course at the moment so many communities are so small, so looking at all of them isn't really much of a problem. You can usually find what you're looking for.
Die4Ever
in reply to MimicJar • • •Reddit has like 8 different Dragon Ball communities lol, and 3 for the show "From"
but still something that could be improved in Lemmy, to have an advantage over Reddit
im_fine_sandy
in reply to squirrel • • •The real answer, that we all know but dare not speak, is that it's miserable here.
Once you've blocked the tankies, porn, and militant dweebs, it's wall to wall politics and titty memes.
I'm here because I'm also a miserable asshole.
Carlos Solís likes this.
Obituarykidney
in reply to im_fine_sandy • • •pnutster
in reply to Obituarykidney • • •My main reason for looking for alternatives. Wanted to stop my morning coffee doom scrolling to consist of only US politics… if you can call it politics that is… Lemmy fits the bill.
As someone has said before, I agree with a bit of lack on on-boarding, you need to be a little bit more insistent on setup to ensure you get the communities you want. Not hard, but can definitely imagine that would stop some from trying out lemmy any further.
Obituarykidney
in reply to pnutster • • •elephantium
in reply to Obituarykidney • • •cinoreus
in reply to Obituarykidney • • •Honestly I do look at American politics with amusement. When I was younger I always thought my country was shitty and western world is a shining palace, and reddit and Lemmy broke that illusion of mine.
More I look at your politicians, I realised yours and mine aren't as different as one might think they are. Like yes, you got better infrastructure and civic sense, yet in some ways we're in same boat.
Die4Ever
in reply to Obituarykidney • • •majster
in reply to Die4Ever • • •Die4Ever
in reply to majster • • •Orbital
in reply to Obituarykidney • • •Carlos Solís
in reply to im_fine_sandy • •Burn_The_Right
in reply to im_fine_sandy • • •makeshift0546
in reply to Burn_The_Right • • •Burn_The_Right
in reply to makeshift0546 • • •gandalf_der_13te
in reply to im_fine_sandy • • •atro_city
in reply to gandalf_der_13te • • •toothpaste_sandwich
in reply to im_fine_sandy • • •Sir. Haxalot
in reply to toothpaste_sandwich • • •It’s been a thing on !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world for the past days or two..
… but it’s more meme than titty.
mysticpickle
in reply to im_fine_sandy • • •lambalicious
in reply to im_fine_sandy • • •angstylittlecatboy
in reply to im_fine_sandy • • •I really don't know why I'm still here, because I'm not a miserable asshole, at least not in the way that makes you enjoy being around Lemmy's userbase.
I want the technology to succeed but it feels like a victim of who's likely to even be interested.
im_fine_sandy
in reply to angstylittlecatboy • • •Yeah.
I don't really think I'm an asshole but I'm certainly unhappy.
Misery loves company as they say.
I think I'm here because I crave the dopamine, but am not willing to log in to reddit or whatever else.
Basically it's the best option from a range of bad options.
IlCaviale
in reply to squirrel • • •SharkAttak
in reply to IlCaviale • • •atrielienz
in reply to SharkAttak • • •I don't like the way they said it, but I do see their point.
I don't get banned from places often, but I've literally had a guy just decide they didn't like my face and ban me from an instance.
And people 100% do sometimes act like you have to be completely in their comfort zone or you're a terrible person.
SharkAttak
in reply to atrielienz • • •atrielienz
in reply to SharkAttak • • •Zen_Shinobi
in reply to squirrel • • •RBWells
in reply to squirrel • • •I was on Reddit a long time, it wasn't always huge. Usenet forums before that. I like following topics, not people, and like hosting communities built around topics but would hate to have "followers" of myself personally, that sounds hellish. So never used Facebook, etc, and don't even love Mastodon, really.
But apparently this is a minority view?
EastofEdson
in reply to RBWells • • •I'm with you. I also come from the Usenet days and much prefer to follow topics over people.
I do have some web forums that I visit from time to time but those have even less traffic than Lemmy.
I don't use Reddit at all now, so Lemmy is pretty much the only option for this style of topic based content. The ability to follow hashtags on Mastodon is kind of nice too. Unfortunately, people spamming unrelated hashtags on their posts can still be a problem.
Evotech
in reply to squirrel • • •nimisnimi
in reply to Evotech • • •kestrel7_7
in reply to nimisnimi • • •OpenStars
in reply to kestrel7_7 • • •Pamasich
in reply to kestrel7_7 • • •brucethemoose
in reply to squirrel • • •lokalhorst
in reply to squirrel • • •Diva (she/her)
in reply to lokalhorst • • •StupidBrotherInLaw
in reply to Diva (she/her) • • •AlligatorBlizzard
in reply to StupidBrotherInLaw • • •Well it's an ml account that made you go what the fuck is this place so I guess it's an appropriate response.
Or they meant to post this in another thread, I don't know how it happens but I see it like once a month or so.
Bitch Pudding
in reply to AlligatorBlizzard • • •Diva (she/her)
in reply to AlligatorBlizzard • • •oh it was intentional
kestrel7_7
in reply to lokalhorst • • •masterspace
in reply to squirrel • • •Just gonna throw this out there: Lemmy is a bad and dumb name.
eesound? Reddit, Twitter, Threads, they all end with these conclusive consonant sounds. Lemmy sounds like it's trailing off while whining.kestrel7_7
in reply to masterspace • • •OccasionallyFeralya
in reply to kestrel7_7 • • •SorteKanin
in reply to masterspace • • •SharkAttak
in reply to SorteKanin • • •masterspace
in reply to SorteKanin • • •I agree, Reddit's name isn't why people use it, but critically it doesn't hold people back from using it.
Reddit is a satisfying enough word, doesn't disparage it's users or sound like a childish joke, and doesn't conjure images of rats or rodents.
I don't love it but it is a much better name than Lemmy.
lambalicious
in reply to masterspace • • •masterspace
in reply to lambalicious • • •lambalicious
in reply to masterspace • • •masterspace
in reply to lambalicious • • •No, it's not magic, it's called marketing, market research, and psychology. There are literally billions of dollars that go into advertising, do you think they just magically come up with names?
Literally never once claimed that. Mastodon is a little long but at least it's satisfying and conjures up images of a big fuzzy creature instead of a rodent.
IndustryStandard
in reply to squirrel • • •Bitch Pudding
in reply to IndustryStandard • • •lambalicious
in reply to Bitch Pudding • • •Bitch Pudding
in reply to lambalicious • • •Mulligrubs
in reply to squirrel • • •I would guess that the founders made these design decisions to exclude normies, maybe that's also why they picked the name and selected the rat icon. In which case, everything is working as designed and all is well.
OccasionallyFeralya
in reply to Mulligrubs • • •You’re missing letter there
atro_city
in reply to squirrel • • •"nobody", nearly 50k people.
Asking people on mastodon if they use lemmy also doesn't make much sense to me. I don't use mastodon because it's not threaded, people on mastodon probably don't use lemmy for a similar reason. I'm not sure how many people use both threaded and unthreaded platforms, but it feels to me like the two layouts attract different people.
AmyAye
in reply to atro_city • • •Chee_Koala
in reply to AmyAye • • •cinoreus
in reply to AmyAye • • •brianary
in reply to AmyAye • • •Not_mikey
in reply to squirrel • • •I kind of like this level of people as lemmy is less saturated and that's a good thing. Quite often when I was on reddit you'd look at a thread and everything that can be said has been said, so there's nothing new you can add.
I find myself commenting on lemmy a lot more because it's not saturated and that pun hasn't been done, the perspective hasn't been provided, the counterpoint to another comment hasn't been commented etc.
postmateDumbass
in reply to Not_mikey • • •Krudler
in reply to squirrel • • •For something to be popular, you have to turn it on and you're using it.
That will always be the biggest issue.
Auth
in reply to squirrel • • •Steve
in reply to squirrel • • •lechekaflan
in reply to Steve • • •aesthelete
in reply to squirrel • • •Zizzy
in reply to squirrel • • •pomp
in reply to Zizzy • • •BauerBender
in reply to pomp • • •TubularTittyFrog
in reply to BauerBender • • •percent
in reply to squirrel • • •If I had to guess: the culture here seems unusual, and unwelcoming — sometimes even hostile — to diverse opinions (i.e. people who aren't similarly unusual).
I haven't met many people IRL who would fit in here. For some visitors, that's okay (I don't fit in here, myself), but I think most people would just move along and forget that Lemmy exists.
Being federated, Lemmy is technically capable of being more diverse. It's a bit ironic that it still ended up being like this.
Also, some images don't load. I just ignore those, but still people might be put off by broken UX
pomp
in reply to percent • • •Bitch Pudding
in reply to pomp • • •daniskarma
in reply to percent • • •dance_ninja
in reply to squirrel • • •1. Content Scale & Variety - Lemmy has a lot of content but it's very tech/political heavy. It doesn't have much to offer outside of that domain. Meanwhile, there's a whole shitposting subreddit dedicated to an NFL conference -- I don't even closely follow professional American football, but it's glorious.
1. User Experience Friction - You can't just sign up, you need to pick a server. You've already lost a significant amount of people in that step.
1. User Base - There's nice folks on here, but some really sour the experience for the rest of us by being straight up hostile if we don't agree on every little detail.
bampop
in reply to dance_ninja • • •dance_ninja
in reply to bampop • • •YOU HAVE MADE A BLOOD PACT WITH WORLD.
ML HATES YOU NOW
Diva (she/her)
in reply to dance_ninja • • •Bilb!
in reply to dance_ninja • • •TubularTittyFrog
in reply to bampop • • •lambalicious
in reply to bampop • • •QuinnyCoded
in reply to dance_ninja • • •I think this can be improved if there was a better way to explain the identity of each instance and why you might want to join other than just "generic Lemmy server for everyone to use"
Also if the random server a new user randomly joins is one of the tankie trifecta they're not gonna have a good time.
I suggest a map that shows which instances are federated/defederated from eachother and lets you find which one has the closest identity to what you like. And possibly a disclaimer before joining one of the trifecta instances.
Or just say fuck it and join the one literally called "shit just works" like me 😂
pressanykeynow
in reply to QuinnyCoded • • •It's worse than that. Lemmy just as reddit is mostly American. American election results were kinda... interesting. And Lemmy is very-very-very polarised. So there's likely 33% chance that new American user will get to "politically their" instance, 33% chance they'll get to the instance on the other side of the spectrum, and 33% chance it doesn't matter what instance they'll end up at, they'll be terrified by both sides. So at best it's 33% chance for user to find their hivemind, realistically it's probably much less because even people technically from "your side" might find Lemmy to be way too radical. And that's just Americans, imagine how the rest 96% of the world react to Lemmy.
bampop
in reply to QuinnyCoded • • •Sasquatch
in reply to QuinnyCoded • • •dance_ninja
in reply to Sasquatch • • •onion_trial
in reply to dance_ninja • • •This is even after blocking instances, communities, keywords and some personal ublock rules.
dance_ninja
in reply to onion_trial • • •That's so much extra work
renrenPDX
in reply to dance_ninja • • •Tollana1234567
in reply to dance_ninja • • •LaLuzDelSol
in reply to dance_ninja • • •Haha there are in fact sixteen different NFL shitposting subreddits, one for each of the 16 different divisions. And each one is as active as just about any Lemmy community.
I agree on the other 2 points as well. Not only is it weird to have to pick an instance, the names and descriptions are off putting as well. You scroll through and several of the top ones are openly Marxist/leninist/leftist. 95% of people see that and are immediately put off. It sends a message that Lemmy is fundamentally for leftist agenda-posting, and a lot of users treat it that way. Click on any completely non-political-sounding community (like Movies or something), sort top all time and you will usually be greeted immediately by posts about Israel/Palestine or Donald Trump. Its exhausting honestly.
Tattorack
in reply to squirrel • • •From what I've heard of more technical people on here while lurking discussions, Lemmy isn't scalable.
If everyone from Reddit were to move over to Lemmy, we'd be in big trouble.
kepix
in reply to squirrel • • •pmk
in reply to kepix • • •Dead_or_Alive
in reply to squirrel • • •In my opinion the following:
I’ll be honest I miss old Reddit, Lemmy feels like an apocalyptic wasteland but it’s still better than most alternative. It’s kind of nice I don’t sit and consume content as much as I used to.
BauerBender
in reply to Dead_or_Alive • • •THIS. I'm a progressive, egalitarian, socialist. I believe everyone deserves civil rights, but socially I don't give a fuck about furries or whatever fucking kink you have. Do not equate the fight that gays/trans people have fought for their rights to your weird fetishes anime drawings. This opinion gets me in trouble here.
Tollana1234567
in reply to Dead_or_Alive • • •CultLeader4Hire
in reply to squirrel • • •moopet
in reply to CultLeader4Hire • • •inari
in reply to squirrel • • •jimmy90
in reply to inari • • •the predicted commie red wave revolution are all here in their dozens, actually about 2000 of them
revolution!
nullspace
in reply to squirrel • • •undree
in reply to nullspace • • •nullspace
in reply to undree • • •Naming something after a famous person means you're starting off on the back foot in terms of SEO and brand clarity.
Digg worked well because it came out of an era where adding a second G was enough to sound techy, but it also played into the dig/bury aspect of voting. Reddit works because the name is "read it" while also being a unique string you couldn't mistake for anything else. Both have a lot going for them that Lemmy just doesn't.
LaLuzDelSol
in reply to nullspace • • •rodneylives
in reply to nullspace • • •Disagree. This is a case of the brand actually not meaning much. "Reddit" isn't great either, but people think it does because it's well known.
I'm reminded of the person who said Mario was a character designed from the ground up to be marketable, when it was literally created to make a graphic of a person readable in a 16x16 sprite with three colors.
architect
in reply to nullspace • • •It’s this plus onboarding. Reddit is easy to remember. It tells you exactly what you are getting. Lemmy sounds like a new lemmings games. It gives vintage when it should do the opposite.
It’s a bad name and will never become popular because it’s stupid to say outloud and on top of it onboarding is unnecessarily complicated.
joshthewaster
in reply to architect • • •expletivedeleted
in reply to squirrel • • •The irony:
You are askinf people on Lemmy why people don't use lemmy?
Brother, don't you own a mirror? Go get high and existential on reddit.
ilinamorato
in reply to expletivedeleted • • •Dalaryous
in reply to squirrel • • •Nowtayneicangetinto
in reply to Dalaryous • • •rodneylives
in reply to Nowtayneicangetinto • • •billionsandbillions
in reply to squirrel • • •It's because everything that becomes popular starts with people in the 14-20 year range.
Myspace, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Tiktok...
The Fediverse will eventually grow once something triggers a snowball effect due the nature of connectivity and federation. Until then, the way to make it grow is to have young people make it popular.
Edit: There also needs to be more "fun" here. I think the Fediverse is a more "serious" place which isn't what those other social media sites offered. "Serious 24/7" isn't that enticing for young people.
The other day I was imagining a game or game service that has you make a Fediverse account of some kind. You get people to signup with a username that automatically creates a "@fedi.games" account. That account can have access to Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed etc.
TubularTittyFrog
in reply to billionsandbillions • • •billionsandbillions
in reply to TubularTittyFrog • • •LaLuzDelSol
in reply to billionsandbillions • • •dropdrip
in reply to squirrel • • •Let's state plainly: the title is false. I use lemmy; you're using lemmy; the other commentators are using lemmy.
There's a concept I've been mulling over for a while--and economists probably have a term for it of which I'm ignorant of--that is that free software fails in capitalist market economies. I expect that statement to create a knee-jerk reaction. The truth is free-software is everywhere and as computers become ever more embedded into our economies free-software's presence will only grow exponentially. It's often the foundation for computerised economies.
Free-software enthusiasts understand that its become endemic to the economy. However businesses and consumers still ignore it even when it might be prudent to select or fund free-software. To ignore it seems contradictory to a lot of ideals. A capitalist business should use free-software as the monetary cost is zero: it's a free product. Revolutionary organisations should adopt free-software is it aligns with their ideologies. Yet we know they don't. These actors are acting irrationally.
Free-software la
... Mostrar másLet's state plainly: the title is false. I use lemmy; you're using lemmy; the other commentators are using lemmy.
There's a concept I've been mulling over for a while--and economists probably have a term for it of which I'm ignorant of--that is that free software fails in capitalist market economies. I expect that statement to create a knee-jerk reaction. The truth is free-software is everywhere and as computers become ever more embedded into our economies free-software's presence will only grow exponentially. It's often the foundation for computerised economies.
Free-software enthusiasts understand that its become endemic to the economy. However businesses and consumers still ignore it even when it might be prudent to select or fund free-software. To ignore it seems contradictory to a lot of ideals. A capitalist business should use free-software as the monetary cost is zero: it's a free product. Revolutionary organisations should adopt free-software is it aligns with their ideologies. Yet we know they don't. These actors are acting irrationally.
Free-software lacks something that is a prerequisite to participate in an economy: capital. It has no money to propagandise itself. To phrase it another way: it has no money to buy ads. Without ads it doesn't exist to entities who do have capital.
In Australia Reddit brought ad-space inside shopping-centers. Commercial software has revenues from which a portion can be spent on advertising and its through this advertising that growth can occur. The reason why lemmy has a small user-base is because it has no revenue streams. It’s an economic sink.
If we were to imagine that the user-pool was to dramatically increase what would actually occur? I imagine many instances would be overwhelmed with traffic, knocking them offline. For those that remain a lot of traffic would be perceived as spam. There is no revenue stream that's attached to that user-base. If there was you would--absolutely!--see lemmy's user-base increase as there would be a profit incentive: more users would equate to more profit. The current reality is that more users equates to more debts.
The market for 'internet-forums' has already consolidated into the big-players we know of. Maybe someone could take lemmy's code and usurp the established vendors. That behaviour is already underway now; it's why we have a multitude of lemmy instances. Maybe the next titan of 'internet-communities' will be running a lemmy stack. Not all operators are hosting lemmy with ideology/charity being at the fore. Some site operators are asking themselves, "how can I monetise this?"
From my perspective the issue isn't why people don’t use lemmy, it's why is hosting so expensive? The prerequisites to self-hosting (whether it be for personal use or for an established group or organisation) are costly. One has to pay rent on a DNS, static-IP, hardware and data connections. These prerequisites are commercial in nature and are priced as if every buyer has a revenue stream from which these rents are payed from.
If an individual/group wants independence and decides to self-host they're taking on these rents that have been priced at commercial rates. Those are the monetary hurdles. There's an intellectual hurdle too: a group needs to have members that know how to administer and maintain servers. The prerequisites are rather burdensome. It should then not come as a surprise that a group of young people who play video-games with each other elect to have their community on discord, or whatever commercial-entity takes on the economic and intellectual burdens. These commercial entities hide the complex nature of computer systems and the economic relationships that exist. In exchange they're chasing speculative profits. They have revenue coming in from which they can apportion to advertising and paid programmers. They have the incentives to grow.
Lemmy is reactionary software. It pines for the day's of webmaster superiority.. Where a webmaster ruled a personal fiefdom and brought and sold other fiefdoms. Users should be able to host and maintain servers for themselves and their communities. Economic rents and knowledge-specialisation are high hurdles to overcome. If they are overcome they'll find a wasteland where users have already been captured by existing market players—not only that! They’ll exist side-by-side commercial vendors that pay to have their software blasted from every ad outlet they can afford. The enthusiast or ideologue has sparse capital to attract new users away from their existing 'digital-home' whilst the current players have enormous war-chests and if non-economic forces somehow push new-users towards them (e.g. something ‘viral’) they have insufficient economic resources to accommodate them.
I would advocate for technology like GNUnet, i2p and hyphanet (GNUnet being my personal favorite). Software such as those abolish the major economic-rents that would otherwise be required for the 'clearnet'. (DNS rents are unjustifiable and I would like to direct readers to the OpenNIC project.) However the intellectual burden is increased.
I would like to take a jab at the idea that Reddit (or whatever third-party is used) takes ownership of a community and their user-generated content. They certainly do, but the community leaders voluntarily gave it up. They also neglected their responsibilities. There's no reason why users couldn't have a local-mirror of their community even if it is hosted on a third-party platform. That would negate the reality of a third-party purge and therefore the ‘destruction’ of their community. These communities are irresponsible with irresponsible users. How does one make an irresponsible user responsible? I don't think it can be done.
GNUnet
www.gnunet.orgBauerBender
in reply to dropdrip • • •AlligatorBlizzard
in reply to dropdrip • • •retromustache
in reply to squirrel • • •rumba
in reply to retromustache • • •Part of the problem is there's a lot less to it than it feels like there is. The analogies we use to teach to non-tech people don't quite match up.
It's simply a structured way to log in and send messages back and forth.
You can use it to stitch together forums, link shares, social media, video sharing, or image sharing sites.
But we really don't bind things together all that tightly. At best you can follow someone on pixelfed or mastodon. Since there's truly no minimum wiring, a lot of services don't even really fully communicate with each other. So we end up mostly with mastodon <-> mastodon links and lemmy->piefed<-lemmy links.
TubularTittyFrog
in reply to rumba • • •activitypub is a protocol. like email.
instances are just what provider you want to use, gmail, hotmail, outlook, etc.
stopforgettingit
in reply to squirrel • • •TubularTittyFrog
in reply to stopforgettingit • • •on reddit it would be 6000.
30K users is small potatoes. even maybe niche subreddits have userbases larger than that.
stopforgettingit
in reply to TubularTittyFrog • • •Die4Ever
in reply to squirrel • • •artyom
in reply to squirrel • • •squirrel
in reply to artyom • • •Tollana1234567
in reply to squirrel • • •susieq0044
in reply to squirrel • • •Die4Ever
in reply to susieq0044 • • •missingno
in reply to squirrel • • •Cornballer
in reply to squirrel • • •shittydwarf
in reply to squirrel • • •MyOpinion
in reply to squirrel • • •Sibbo
in reply to squirrel • • •Infrapink
in reply to Sibbo • • •schnurrito
in reply to Sibbo • • •Sibbo
in reply to schnurrito • • •hendrik
in reply to squirrel • • •gandalf_der_13te
in reply to hendrik • • •hendrik
in reply to gandalf_der_13te • • •Infrapink
in reply to squirrel • • •Doesn't PieFed do exactly that?
squirrel
in reply to Infrapink • • •mesa
in reply to squirrel • • •SorteKanin
in reply to squirrel • • •Personally I'm not a fan. Imagine if /r/games and /r/gaming on reddit shared comment sections. That'd be a complete mess.
Different communities should be allowed to nurture their own culture.
Die4Ever
in reply to SorteKanin • • •SorteKanin
in reply to Die4Ever • • •Die4Ever
in reply to SorteKanin • • •Pamasich
in reply to SorteKanin • • •What do you think about the Mbin model? (linked an example post)
cm0002
2026-10-04 06:28:10
SorteKanin
in reply to Pamasich • • •AmbiguousCabbage
in reply to squirrel • • •How does the topic consolidation work, exactly? Does it only consolidate cross-posts, or does it also consolidate all posts from communities that have exactly the same name? The only documentation I can find is at join.piefed.social/features/ which just says:
Features - PieFed
piefedadmin (PieFed)Ek-Hou-Van-Braai
in reply to squirrel • • •The UX still has a long way to go.
I'm very tolerant of shitty tech and like a struggle, and even I am often like wtf.
Signed up to piefed.zip the other day, and the default feed is just horrendous
Most users will just quit instead of trying to figure out how to fix it manually.
No proper onboarding
aizakku
in reply to Ek-Hou-Van-Braai • • •Die4Ever
in reply to aizakku • • •AlligatorBlizzard
in reply to Die4Ever • • •Die4Ever
in reply to AlligatorBlizzard • • •herseycokguzelolacak
in reply to squirrel • • •∃∀λ
in reply to herseycokguzelolacak • • •realitista
in reply to squirrel • • •Die4Ever
in reply to realitista • • •This does exist in the default Lemmy UI, it's just a bit inconsistent. Also it's hard to notice when it is working, for obvious reasons lol.
hansolo
in reply to squirrel • • •broom
in reply to squirrel • • •pseudo
in reply to broom • • •SuiXi3D
in reply to squirrel • • •melsaskca
in reply to squirrel • • •Kierunkowy74@kbin.social
in reply to squirrel • • •2/3 of polled Mastodon & co. users use no link aggregator, neither Threadiverse not siloed ones.
Maybe microblogging is good enough for them?
scytale
in reply to squirrel • • •SkaveRat
in reply to squirrel • • •Nobody used reddit for a long time as well
Until people did
Lemmy feels like reddit around 2009
blackberry28
in reply to squirrel • • •dontbelievethis
in reply to squirrel • • •some_guy
in reply to squirrel • • •illi
in reply to some_guy • • •nutbutter
in reply to some_guy • • •HubertManne
in reply to squirrel • • •Doomsider
in reply to HubertManne • • •Best question here. Also, if Lemmy had a ton of users would it really be the place we want to hang out? I personally felt Reddit got worse after it blew up and a lot of people joined.
I used to sit around and talk about silly things like Linux just fine then I noticed I started getting constantly brigaded by Winblows Fanbois. Reddit turned into a shit hole of sub-par generic groupthink and I would rather that did not happen on Lemmy.
darthsundhaft
in reply to squirrel • • •Meldrik
in reply to squirrel • • •lightnsfw
in reply to Meldrik • • •sanitation
in reply to squirrel • • •Moderation is waay waay worse on lemmy
sanitation
in reply to squirrel • • •lemmy.world/post/51345527.
Basically this. Quadruple moderation on lemmy is stupid.
Reddit agents easily ban content and active contributors
MoogleMaestro
in reply to squirrel • • •I use Lemmy and Mastodon, so I'm not really a great person to ask.
But I think all federated platforms have branding issues. "You should use Lemmy." What does this mean exactly? What site do you join? What app do you download on the phone?
Bilb!
in reply to MoogleMaestro • • •lambalicious
in reply to squirrel • • •Crozekiel
in reply to lambalicious • • •It's named after a famous musician that was active for like 30+ years. Half the results when you search "Lemmy" are him, not the platform. Oh, and he had an unfortunate collection of Nazi memorabilia - he claimed it wasn't because he liked the nazis just that he liked the look of their shit...
FOSS often ends up with bad names unfortunately. People never know what is going to become big when they start a project and they might get a giggle out of the name when it's a small project. By the time the project becomes big enough that the name might actually start being a problem, it is also known by that name and changing it could significantly impact how many people keep using it. Unfortunately, a name change is often a touchy subject for any project.
Maki
in reply to squirrel • • •