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?
Eventually the fediverse will grow. Maybe now or in 5-10 years when the rest of the internet users get fed up with the ads and subscription fees etc. on commercial sites. It seems like an inevitable evolution.
I don’t think reddit will necessarily fail big time, but it has changed into something that I don’t want or need to participate in, so it doesn’t really matter to me. I actually don’t want them to fail, because the users there who enjoy it for what it is now should be able to use it for …that.
In the last couple of years it grew too big for my taste anyway. The “Eternal September” phenomena hit it pretty badly. I didn’t enjoy the constant noise and immature arguing over semantics. It’s a different demographic than Facebook, but it’s about the same reason I don’t use that either.
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.
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
No, this is going to be its own niche. And that’s fine.
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.
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.
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.
Agreed. But Reddit, along with most of the internet, was like that in the early days too. In the days pre-Digg migration, I feel like Reddit was down more than up. After the migration though, there was enough critical mass to encourage bug fixing and improvement.
I’m sure there will be growing pains though no matter the outcome.
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 was skeptical of lemmy at first but it’s definitely growing on me. As apps and features mature I’m sure it’s going to be even better.
Was a chronic lurker on Reddit but hoping to contribute to communities here to help it grow!
It all depends on the community and if it will keep growing.
I think lemmy has a lot of potential, we are just lacking the flood of content that Reddit has. But as this the API changes just went into effect, I feel like new users are still learning the ropes of lemmy and it will be some time until we have that endless stream of content. So it is important for us all to be as active as possible to help reach that goal faster
It’ll come and go like all the rest. AOL, AIM, IRC, message boards, myspace, livejournal, digg, fark, slashdot, reddit, lemmy…???
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!
