Lemmy is more like the old school Usenet than modern social media, and I would like it to stay that way. I don’t want the average doomscroller to come over here, I like the cozy atmosphere.
Was usenet pretty much a bunch of federated forums back then? When I first heard of it, around 2009, all I could find were places charging upfront for registration.
The Fediverse is a resurrection of an old concept,and yes, Usenet was a bunch of servers talking to each other, very much like the rest of the Internet. It has been supplanted by the World Wide Web in the 90s, and now that the Web is choc full of SEO spam, bots and intrusive ads, Usenet style communities are popping up once more.
As for the modern Usenet, it is mostly being used for ahem “file sharing”, hence why some companies offer paid accsess.
You know what? I think I’m okay with the fediverse simply never getting as big and popular as Reddit is/was. Over the years, as it got more popular, I definitely noticed that the average quality of interactions I had on Reddit slowly but steadily declined. Lemmy feels like old-school Reddit, which I am honestly pretty happy about.
That’s what I keep saying. I keep getting told I’m wrong though, that Lemmy needs to be easier to join, and hit critical mass and become the reddit killer because that’s the only way we can exist.
Like, no thank you. I’m happy with Lemmy NOW, I don’t need it to keep growing!
In all fairness, most people who want to see reddit killed off because they’re still mourning how shitty it became, along with the virtual backstabbing by the admins through May/June. In reality, Reddit has a decent enough mainstream foothold that it’ll likely linger on for a while, maybe even years. But the reddit we all once knew has been pretty dead for a while now.
There is a pretty wide sweet spot between 100k users and 100 million. I think most of us agree that Lemmy shouldn’t be trying to be a reddit killer, but that doesn’t contradict the fact that we still need to grow the userbase by orders of magnitude.
I’m loving this phase, don’t get me wrong, but I have a feeling that by the time we hit 1 million or 5 million it’ll be even more enoyable here. We have a longggg way to go before we have to worry about becoming too big.
I think some more growth would definitely be good for the community. There’s still a lot of room for growth before we even come close to being as big as early 10’s reddit.
Depends. If instances keep going into defederarion wars over philosophical beliefs it will become really tricky to have small communities. If I like some kind of bizarre miniatures, turtle crocheting, collectible wooden marbles, etc. I shouldn’t have to worry about whether the other person I want to talk to who collects toy unicorns is a “tankie” or not. As long as the communities are moderated enough, political philosophies shouldn’t be an issue.
Honestly? I think a big issue with getting more people over here is kinda the attitude. This place is really elitist and condescending when the real reason go to threads or stick to twitter is cause
Thats where their friends are
The sign up+finding communities process is way more intuitive and 3) Folks over here shit on them a lot
I like it here, its been my prefered site, but between the stale memes and elitism the Fediverse has been like the Linux of social media. Probably better, but not really worth it for the average user.
Like, I know that wont win me any friends, but it’s the truth. People are usually going to go the path of least resistance, and Lemmy instances being confusing to navigate for an average user, or looking at Mastodon.world and seeing they banned shitposts and not understanding that they can use a different one or spin up their own is going to turn people away.
If you want a more niche userbase that’s fine, I certainly do, but it’s wild to insult them for being stupid for not joining while actively keeping them away lol
I feel called out. And I can’t even try and defend myself, if I’m being honest, best I could do is try to defend my elitist point of view, that people who don’t want to bother putting the slightest bit of effort really don’t have much to do here. There’s also the problem that instances can only grow so much before their home servers get strained with traffic and hosting costs soar.
In a way, we are and will remain the linux of social platforms. Small, vocal, divided by the pettiest reasons and annoying to no end to “the normies”
You make good points. People could afford to be more accepting and patient.
But it’s also inevitable that the people on a more niche platform will judge the people on a mainstream platform. That’s just human nature, and it doesn’t turn people away as much as you imply. For everyone who’s turned off by the condescension, there’s another person who’s curious whether it’s justified.
while actively keeping them away lol
I mean, the numbers clearly indicate that 99.99% of reddit users have never made an account on Lemmy. I don’t think people are being pushed away, I think they are simply lazy and short sighted, and also waiting for the dust to settle.
Reddit was the most elitist site on the planet for much of its existence, and it never posed a problem for growth.
I have nothing against people that want to use Threads, truly, and I would welcome them to Lemmy. That said, I do draw the line at federating with Threads. I’m here specifically because it’s not part of a big company. If anyone wants to enjoy that content, go for it! Just create an account over there.
Threads starting up just proved to me that everyone would willingly join the empire if it gave them the smallest amount of convenience. Hell they’ll pay for the empire to have less privacy and freedom if they can.
Exactly. And the same applies to Linux, if it becomes majority then hackers and scammers would start targeting it. This things are better off thriving in their niche than dominating the environment
Watching this whole thing go down has made me realize that regardless of what people say, it’s not about the number of people, the quality of the experience, or anything like that.
A lot of people actually want to be surrounded by “brands” and “influencers”. Some people even get a kick out of “hate following” people who they don’t like, which blows my mind.
That’s why Threads feels so right to them. Threads has been designed for one thing, and one thing only: connecting companies to customers, often via influencers and eventually through traditional advertising.
Yup, there’s a reason all of the corporate brands immediately jumped over there, and most celebrities.
The only reason I’d want to federate with threads would be for celebrities I follow, but even then I’m not sure if I’ll federate my instance with it. Definitely not creating a threads account by any means.
This. I don’t want to be on someone else’s “team” because I like to form my own opinions. I don’t want other people telling me how to manage my own head.
This is the ”insurmountable” challenge of almost every tech platform from Google to Reddit to Twitter and so on, the competitive advantage is the user base. So without a notable performance advantage (like Google usurping Yahoo) or tangible user experience benefit (Facebook replacing MySpace), these platforms will remain the dominant player in their niche.
Good news is the shitification of tech has really presented some opportunities in some of the niches. Obviously we’re all aware of reddit’s recent actions, Twitter is trying its best to fail, Facebook went the cable TV route and made itself uncool, and Insta keeps flirting with real bad ideas.
Fediverse might not be the answer, but there hasnt been a better time for viable alternatives in a very long while.
If Lemmy isn’t the answer then I’m not sure what hope we have. This seems like a perfect storm and I doubt there will be a better alternative coming any time soon.
One of my concerns is that we are running out of people who remember the pre-corporate internet at this rate. This platform has a gaping hole of Gen Z users as far as I can tell. Many of them never experienced the internet when it was cool, so they don’t have any particular dissatisfaction with the curated dopamine drip feed it has been turned into.
It just feels like this is the moment to revive that original dream of the internet for a new generation. Let’s make it happen here so we can take credit for it 😅
I tend to have a really bad mindset where I avoid places with little to no activity because I worry about giving the owner false hope. If nobody else shows up, I think that my presence might hinder their progress by preventing them from making necessary changes.
I need to get over it cos it’s obviously wrong but keeps on my mind
Its the same as how the vast majority of the US citizens hate both main political parties, but the majority also says “I wont vote for a third party because they could never win.”
Yeah but it’s true. It’s better to ensure Republicans don’t win than try to get your third party in. The problem is not the mindset of the people, it’s the first past the post voting system. If they used ranked choice voting instead, it wouldn’t be a problem.
This isn’t a fair comparison because there’s nothing stopping you from being on Lemmy, and the same evening watching some YouTube.
Most US voting systems are first-the-post which results in the spoiler effect. They would be wasting their vote if they don’t vote one of the big two. (Other than areas which allow for proportional representation).
Don’t vote for a third-party present, or governor or whatever. Y’all need some preferential voting to make that work.
I might be a weirdo here but I enjoy both kinds of social media mainstream social media is cool because all your friends and family are there and you can fellow famous people but the fediverse is fun because of all the fun nerds and weirdos activists and people whose massage would be squashed anywhere else
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Rules:
Be civil and nice.
Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
She’s just not that into you man.
Lemmy is more like the old school Usenet than modern social media, and I would like it to stay that way. I don’t want the average doomscroller to come over here, I like the cozy atmosphere.
Was usenet pretty much a bunch of federated forums back then? When I first heard of it, around 2009, all I could find were places charging upfront for registration.
The Fediverse is a resurrection of an old concept,and yes, Usenet was a bunch of servers talking to each other, very much like the rest of the Internet. It has been supplanted by the World Wide Web in the 90s, and now that the Web is choc full of SEO spam, bots and intrusive ads, Usenet style communities are popping up once more.
As for the modern Usenet, it is mostly being used for ahem “file sharing”, hence why some companies offer paid accsess.
Most people just wanna doom-scroll, they have no interest in having conversations.
man if I start my day without a healthy level of existential dread and depression what’s even the point?
Hahah. Your post hits home.
You know what? I think I’m okay with the fediverse simply never getting as big and popular as Reddit is/was. Over the years, as it got more popular, I definitely noticed that the average quality of interactions I had on Reddit slowly but steadily declined. Lemmy feels like old-school Reddit, which I am honestly pretty happy about.
That’s what I keep saying. I keep getting told I’m wrong though, that Lemmy needs to be easier to join, and hit critical mass and become the reddit killer because that’s the only way we can exist.
Like, no thank you. I’m happy with Lemmy NOW, I don’t need it to keep growing!
In all fairness, most people who want to see reddit killed off because they’re still mourning how shitty it became, along with the virtual backstabbing by the admins through May/June. In reality, Reddit has a decent enough mainstream foothold that it’ll likely linger on for a while, maybe even years. But the reddit we all once knew has been pretty dead for a while now.
There is a pretty wide sweet spot between 100k users and 100 million. I think most of us agree that Lemmy shouldn’t be trying to be a reddit killer, but that doesn’t contradict the fact that we still need to grow the userbase by orders of magnitude.
I’m loving this phase, don’t get me wrong, but I have a feeling that by the time we hit 1 million or 5 million it’ll be even more enoyable here. We have a longggg way to go before we have to worry about becoming too big.
I think some more growth would definitely be good for the community. There’s still a lot of room for growth before we even come close to being as big as early 10’s reddit.
the only thing I miss from reddit are the niche communities
but that will come with time
Depends. If instances keep going into defederarion wars over philosophical beliefs it will become really tricky to have small communities. If I like some kind of bizarre miniatures, turtle crocheting, collectible wooden marbles, etc. I shouldn’t have to worry about whether the other person I want to talk to who collects toy unicorns is a “tankie” or not. As long as the communities are moderated enough, political philosophies shouldn’t be an issue.
That’s kinda the point though. With Reddit you were just stuck with them. Now we can move. People make the communities, not the platforms.
Honestly? I think a big issue with getting more people over here is kinda the attitude. This place is really elitist and condescending when the real reason go to threads or stick to twitter is cause
I like it here, its been my prefered site, but between the stale memes and elitism the Fediverse has been like the Linux of social media. Probably better, but not really worth it for the average user.
Like, I know that wont win me any friends, but it’s the truth. People are usually going to go the path of least resistance, and Lemmy instances being confusing to navigate for an average user, or looking at Mastodon.world and seeing they banned shitposts and not understanding that they can use a different one or spin up their own is going to turn people away.
If you want a more niche userbase that’s fine, I certainly do, but it’s wild to insult them for being stupid for not joining while actively keeping them away lol
Edit 2: Removed the first edit
I feel called out. And I can’t even try and defend myself, if I’m being honest, best I could do is try to defend my elitist point of view, that people who don’t want to bother putting the slightest bit of effort really don’t have much to do here. There’s also the problem that instances can only grow so much before their home servers get strained with traffic and hosting costs soar.
In a way, we are and will remain the linux of social platforms. Small, vocal, divided by the pettiest reasons and annoying to no end to “the normies”
Self-solving problems
You make good points. People could afford to be more accepting and patient.
But it’s also inevitable that the people on a more niche platform will judge the people on a mainstream platform. That’s just human nature, and it doesn’t turn people away as much as you imply. For everyone who’s turned off by the condescension, there’s another person who’s curious whether it’s justified.
I mean, the numbers clearly indicate that 99.99% of reddit users have never made an account on Lemmy. I don’t think people are being pushed away, I think they are simply lazy and short sighted, and also waiting for the dust to settle.
Reddit was the most elitist site on the planet for much of its existence, and it never posed a problem for growth.
Reddit elitism is nothing in comparison to what i see on lemmy instances lol.
You seem to be an expert when it comes to elitism, so I’ll defer to your judgment.
I am curious which social media platform you prefer?
Depending on the definition: twitch/youtube. If you somehow dont count both then none, just using whats handy at the moment.
Fair enough, thank you for answering my question.
I am also hoping that the content on Lemmy will improve going forward, but that doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying it now.
Do you interact with peers on YouTube comments? I’ve never talked with anyone in the comment section other than the content creator.
Very rarely, on youtube im mostly interested in the content. Usually if i want some interaction i go on twitch.
I have nothing against people that want to use Threads, truly, and I would welcome them to Lemmy. That said, I do draw the line at federating with Threads. I’m here specifically because it’s not part of a big company. If anyone wants to enjoy that content, go for it! Just create an account over there.
How would being federated with Threads work? Aren’t we federated with Mastadon? I barely see Mastadon stuff, so why would we see thread’s stuff?
I completely agree. Absolutely should not federate with Threads.
Well that defeats the purpose doesn’t it?
Honestly, I’m fine with the normies staying on Reddit and Twitter, while all of us ‘new cool’ folks explore our rebel alliance.
Threads starting up just proved to me that everyone would willingly join the empire if it gave them the smallest amount of convenience. Hell they’ll pay for the empire to have less privacy and freedom if they can.
Exactly. And the same applies to Linux, if it becomes majority then hackers and scammers would start targeting it. This things are better off thriving in their niche than dominating the environment
Watching this whole thing go down has made me realize that regardless of what people say, it’s not about the number of people, the quality of the experience, or anything like that.
A lot of people actually want to be surrounded by “brands” and “influencers”. Some people even get a kick out of “hate following” people who they don’t like, which blows my mind.
That’s why Threads feels so right to them. Threads has been designed for one thing, and one thing only: connecting companies to customers, often via influencers and eventually through traditional advertising.
I think it is the bother of building up a new following before you get your fix of likes and other narcissistic stuff like that
Yup, there’s a reason all of the corporate brands immediately jumped over there, and most celebrities.
The only reason I’d want to federate with threads would be for celebrities I follow, but even then I’m not sure if I’ll federate my instance with it. Definitely not creating a threads account by any means.
This. I don’t want to be on someone else’s “team” because I like to form my own opinions. I don’t want other people telling me how to manage my own head.
This is the ”insurmountable” challenge of almost every tech platform from Google to Reddit to Twitter and so on, the competitive advantage is the user base. So without a notable performance advantage (like Google usurping Yahoo) or tangible user experience benefit (Facebook replacing MySpace), these platforms will remain the dominant player in their niche.
Good news is the shitification of tech has really presented some opportunities in some of the niches. Obviously we’re all aware of reddit’s recent actions, Twitter is trying its best to fail, Facebook went the cable TV route and made itself uncool, and Insta keeps flirting with real bad ideas.
Fediverse might not be the answer, but there hasnt been a better time for viable alternatives in a very long while.
If Lemmy isn’t the answer then I’m not sure what hope we have. This seems like a perfect storm and I doubt there will be a better alternative coming any time soon.
One of my concerns is that we are running out of people who remember the pre-corporate internet at this rate. This platform has a gaping hole of Gen Z users as far as I can tell. Many of them never experienced the internet when it was cool, so they don’t have any particular dissatisfaction with the curated dopamine drip feed it has been turned into.
It just feels like this is the moment to revive that original dream of the internet for a new generation. Let’s make it happen here so we can take credit for it 😅
I tend to have a really bad mindset where I avoid places with little to no activity because I worry about giving the owner false hope. If nobody else shows up, I think that my presence might hinder their progress by preventing them from making necessary changes.
I need to get over it cos it’s obviously wrong but keeps on my mind
Tbh I kind of don’t want everyone here with us lol
Tell them it’s a secret club that you’ve formed with friends. Set it up for them on their computer or phone. It might make it seem fun.
Exact same for linux
Its the same as how the vast majority of the US citizens hate both main political parties, but the majority also says “I wont vote for a third party because they could never win.”
Yeah but it’s true. It’s better to ensure Republicans don’t win than try to get your third party in. The problem is not the mindset of the people, it’s the first past the post voting system. If they used ranked choice voting instead, it wouldn’t be a problem.
Yet this endless cycle continues if we always vote for one of the big 2 rather than voting for someone we actually like.
Ranked choice voting comes with its own set of problems. Personally I think approval voting would be best, and then Star voting after that.
No voting system is perfect, but just about any other choice is better than what we’ve got right now.
This isn’t a fair comparison because there’s nothing stopping you from being on Lemmy, and the same evening watching some YouTube.
Most US voting systems are first-the-post which results in the spoiler effect. They would be wasting their vote if they don’t vote one of the big two. (Other than areas which allow for proportional representation).
Don’t vote for a third-party present, or governor or whatever. Y’all need some preferential voting to make that work.
I might be a weirdo here but I enjoy both kinds of social media mainstream social media is cool because all your friends and family are there and you can fellow famous people but the fediverse is fun because of all the fun nerds and weirdos activists and people whose massage would be squashed anywhere else
Quality > quantity.
I’m not interested in seeing cringeworthy posts or paid posts to ruin healthy conversation here.
“Healthy conversation” is endless elitist circlejerk and decade old jokes? Lol