How do you feel about the massive influx of users?

  • Sponholz@lemmy.ml
    52·
    1 year ago

    I honestly can’t say about the influx. Since I’m part of it.

    But man…

    This does feel like home.

    I was already loving Mastodon.

    Honestly, the real question is:

    What took us soo long…

    I was lurking on Lemmy for a long time now read only mode, not signed up, but never had the urge to actually making an account.

    I try not to have so many feeds where I’m active at once, to try and better manage the time I spend on this feeds.

    Twitter and Reddit were the ones I engaged the most

    Twitter became Mastodon and Reddit became Lemmy on that matter, so that I can focus on being active and helpful whenever possible.

    So, what took me so long…?

    Definitely something I will be asking myself for a while, since so far the experience here have something that reddit just don’t. The quality over quantity aspect.

    Finally…

    Thanks for having me here, I hope I can contribute the best I can to maintain Lemmy awesome as it is. I don’t post or reply like a madman, but I like to participate on constructive discussion every now and then.

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
      22·
      1 year ago

      what took us so long

      “Inertia is a property of matter” -Bill Nye the Science guy

      What I mean by that is that it takes a force to move a large mass. People behave in much the same way. It takes a push to get people to move in large numbers from one place to another. I personally have been philosophically very pro-fediverse ever since I heard about it, but I was waiting for it to reach a critical mass before really switching over.

      • Andreas@feddit.dk
        282·
        1 year ago

        That, and for Lemmy specifically, its history of being a tankie forum. Without the Reddit refugee migration, if you joined Lemmy as a single user, you would be alone among communists and eventually get bullied into leaving. Already in 2020-2021, Fediverse users knew about Lemmy, but they avoided promoting it because of its userbase. This Reddit situation provided the push to get many normal users over to Lemmy at once to drown out the communist users.

        • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
          62·
          1 year ago

          That’s a good point. Personally I like when there’s a diversity of political opinions that are able to have reasonable discourse. My favourite political subreddit for a while has been /r/stupidpol. It has lots of Marxists, but lots of internal variety in terms of viewpoints, and respectful debate has always been allowed there while also maintaining a lighter atmosphere.

    • croobat@lemm.ee
      7·
      1 year ago

      Hey man, I’ve felt mostly the same than you migrating to lemmy. A while ago I tried mastodon but it really didn’t click with me, how do you do to find people to follow and so? I was only getting recommended the same like 10 guys. I like gaming and programming if it helps.

      • Sponholz@lemmy.ml
        4·
        1 year ago

        For Mastodon?

        I use it the same as my Twitter, mainly googling mastodon lists of know profiles there, the I copy/paste in the search and follow them.

        On Lemmy it’s easier, just do a search for the communities you’d like to join, for example:

        Gaming at beehaw.org is amazing. Subscribe to that if you didn’t already.

  • other_world@lemmy.ml
    49·
    1 year ago

    I went from Digg to Reddit and now I’m looking for a new home. I’m really liking what I’m seeing here!

  • hydra@lemmy.world
    44·
    1 year ago

    It makes me hopeful for the future. Enthusiasts priming the pump for people embracing a more sustainable and less exploitative business model to organize the Internet. Instead of putting all the information on a big centralized locked down platform we share the load and costs between instances.

    I love what is happening now, it is pretty much the biggest display of resistance against big tech I’ve ever seen in my life by a long shot. I’ve seen most of the internet gradually decay to a shadow of its former self so this is a return to form and a switch to a better model in the long run.

    People are finally adopting the Fediverse and if the adoption rates keep up we might start going mainstream with all the advantages and disadvantages, but it will be alright since Lemmy is both federated and FLOSS. Lemmy is a Rust-based, AGPLv3 platform and that means it will be protected against corruption in the foreseable future, I hope.

    EDIT: Over 30% of Reddit already went dark!

  • SpookyMarie@lemmy.ml
    44·
    1 year ago

    I just joined Lemmy because someone on reddit mentioned in it a comment on a thread regarding the blackout. It’s kind of cool getting into a community while it’s still relatively small. I’m excited to see how things grow.

    • jazir5@lemmy.ml
      18·
      1 year ago

      I hopped over here permanently tonight. Uninstalled boost on my phone, and I made Lemmy.ml my homepage. Reddit is just too depressing right now to keep it as my default.

      • alnilam@feddit.nl
        8·
        1 year ago

        When on a Lemmy site on mobile, in Firefox you can go to the three-dots menu and select “install”. You get a shortcut on your phone that will take you to an app like version of Lemmy.

      • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
        6·
        1 year ago

        Reddit is just too depressing right now to keep it as my default.

        It really seems like the front page is just a list of politicians, companies, and people doing terrible things.

  • mkultramkii@lemmy.ml
    40·
    1 year ago

    I’m a reddit refugee, Apollo was my most loved and most used app for years. I was really disappointed about this situation, but after checking out Lemmy, I’m starting to feel really excited about this. I like what I see so far and I think there is a lot of potential, and it is kind of fun to be here now while communities are still smaller. Onwards an upwards! I’m also checking out the beta for the iOS app Mlem, more work to be done but also good potential here. I’ve also been doing iOS dev work for about a decade so maybe I’ll see if I can help contribute to that project in some way.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
    361·
    1 year ago

    12 years Reddit refugee here:

    So far the concept is VERY promising but it still does all feel a bit wonky. Signing up was a headache and took me hours, sign in still sometimes work sometimes not… A huge of development will be required to get lemmy where it needs to be to really compete with Reddit, but so far, I’m very hopeful and happy!

    • Sabata@beehaw.org
      12·
      1 year ago

      It’s a bit wonky but so was reddit. I expect it to improve quickly with it’s sudden interest.

    • MiracleDreamer@beehaw.org
      11·
      1 year ago

      It is also very hard to subscribe to other server’s community (or subreddit equivalent).

      E.g.: i had account from beehaw, if i want to subscribe a channel from lemmy.world i need to see the list of community from lemmy.world comminity list, but I cannot subscribe from there because i dont have lemmy.worlda account. So i need to back to beehaw and search it again in community search bar.

      In jerboa android, I didnt even see a way to search new community

      Would be nice if there is a way to subscribe other server easily

      • MJKee9@lemmy.one
        4·
        1 year ago

        In Jerboa, there is an icon on the bottom that takes you to the search function. I’ve been able to “join” communities from other instances using it

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
        3·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, just found that out the hard way myself. I got to lemmy.world and suddenly was no longer logged in etc… That is something that def needs improvement.

        • Jon@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          3·
          1 year ago

          Agreed. There’s a similar issue on Mastodon that’s been confusing people for years and still hasn’t been addressed, let’s hope Lemmy prioritizes it a bit more!

    • Ataraxia@lemmy.fmhy.ml
      9·
      1 year ago

      At least for me downloading their app jeroba makes the experience much nicer. Haven’t had the issues I had on the website though it’s a bit taxed because of the influx of users. Expected.

    • Izax@pawb.social
      4·
      1 year ago

      Right? I can’t wait to see how it improves as time on. I didn’t have any real problems with joining on my end, though. When you signed up, was it the approval process on your instance, or just confusing? If it was the approval process, that’s probably specific to lemmy.ca.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
        4·
        1 year ago

        I first tried signing up on lemmy.ml, that was impossible. Various hours of trying just got me the “click the signup button and it starts rotating and… nothing”

        Then I went to lemmy.ca, there signup worked, but sign in at times gives the same “button rotating” thing and then nothing. Try again, and it works.

        Its a minor issue, but a very visible one that I would say should be fixed ASAP because its the first thing new people see and you don’t want the first experience to be tiresome.

        • jon@lemmy.tf
          1·
          1 year ago

          The infinitely rotating button happens if their email settings are invalid- just discovered that on my instance. I have mine set to open but require email validation and everything seems to happen instantly, but if they require admin verification it may be bugging out and not telling you.

        • PenguinTD@lemmy.ca
          0·
          1 year ago

          It’s because there is some approval process involved I think to avoid bot/troll accounts. I join lemmy.ca cause I live in Canada. :D

          • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
            2·
            1 year ago

            That’s fine that they have an approval process, but then the user interaction should be different. IT should immediately say that my request is under review and they’ll get back to me asap or something, instead of a “this process is frozen” indication

    • gonzo0815@sh.itjust.works
      4·
      1 year ago

      May I ask why signing up took hours? I didn’t even need to confirm anything via email, so I took me like 10 seconds.

      I used sh.itjust.works though, I think it’s meant to, well, just work. Maybe the process on other instances is more complicated?

    • Matengor@lemmy.ml
      1·
      1 year ago

      Is there a thread or a com where we can discuss improvements for UI and other stuff? c/lemmydev or something?

    • Aninjanameddaryll@outpost.zeuslink.net
      1·
      1 year ago

      I felt the same at first too. The longer sign-up issue makes joining a pain, but I think it’s worth it.

      Part of what I’m coming to love about the lemmy side of things is how free of filler and bots it is. By making a tiny barrier to entry, that’s going to prevent that kind of thing to a degree.

    • Dandylion@beehaw.org
      21·
      1 year ago

      Think of it like moving to a new house rather than picking up your house and moving it to a new neighborhood. The excitement comes from the differences even if you miss the other place.

  • Stoneblackdog@beehaw.org
    31·
    1 year ago

    I am also part of the influx, but I’m worried that this is going to be a short lived thing and people are going to go back to reddit.

    • Alkalyon@sh.itjust.works
      501·
      1 year ago

      people are going to go back to reddit.

      Realistically, there is no reddit to go back to. After the company goes public, Reddit as we knew it, will cease to exist.

      The shareholders will want to be make maximum profit. This means that ads are going to be everywhere. They are going to outsource hosting services to horrible companies, in order to cut down hosting costs like video hosting and image hosting. Features that existed in 3rd party apps are going to be paid features in the official app/webapp, etc.

      Reddit is gone. It’s lost. It will not be there as you knew it to go back to. It’s now a case of where to next and for the time being, lemmy and feddiverse looks the best.

      • GreenCrush@lemmy.world
        37·
        1 year ago

        I think the concept of “enshittification” will become more apparent to more users. Younger people, who are more technically literate, and have seen social media rise and fall I think will be more willing to adopt platforms like Lemmy. Reddit was a “place for weirdos” for a long time until the general public noticed it and began to post comments and posts to YouTube/Instagram/Twitter. Lemmy just needs time.

        One thing I always like to say to people, is “The internet was cooler when your parents didn’t understand how it worked.” I think the concept of Lemmy appeals to and will start to appeal to a lot of people soon.

      • ultimate_question@lemmy.world
        71·
        1 year ago

        All that may be true but that doesn’t mean there’s enough people who are motivated enough to put effort into a reddit alternative – all the reddit design updates suck for the informed user but the whole point of the updates is to keep the much, much larger casual audience hooked, and it’s yet to be seen if a reddit alternative is viable today without the casual audience. Hopefully there’s some good signs over the next few days when the blackout gets rolling

        • qprimed@lemmy.ml
          9·
          1 year ago

          if we pull a critical mass of those that create and consume quality content, organic effects begin to compete with entrenchment. if not, I am ok-ish with that too. if I have to exepriece the world burning down around me, I would prefer to do so in better company than reddit.

    • bhj 🦥@lemmy.one
      35·
      1 year ago

      It’s very unlikely that Lemmy will ever be as big as Reddit, but this influx might have it reach a tipping point where it can start to grow users organically.

      • ddh@lemmy.sdf.org
        16·
        1 year ago

        Indeed, for this kind of service users attract users. I’ve been checking in on Lemmy periodically for years and the content just wasn’t there (for me). But now, with plenty more users, I’m seeing a lot more value in spending more time here.

        • danisth@sh.itjust.works
          6·
          1 year ago

          Yep same here, I’m hoping this is the watershed moment for Lemmy and I can start spending more on here and eventually stop using reddit (or be forced to when they take away my third party app). I don’t generally create much content, but like participating in the community via comments, so it’s hard to be a force for change when nothing is getting posted and no one is commenting.

  • 0xCAFe@feddit.de
    28·
    1 year ago

    I’m not one of the new users but I’m happy because the Lemmyverse feels much more alive now compared to a year ago. ☺️

  • blade_imaginato@lemmy.one
    27·
    1 year ago

    As (another) reddit refugee, in order to compete with reddit, Lemmy needs to invest in its mobile apps, and make other servers easier to access.

  • Slayer 🦊@lemmy.fmhy.ml
    26·
    1 year ago

    I think honestly Lemmy just needs more mobile clients. Jerboa is ok, but third party clients are needed here like they are/were with reddit

    • kersploosh@sh.itjust.works
      13·
      1 year ago

      An idea so old is new again. The Internet and it’s early services (Usenet, email, IRC, etc.) we’re all designed from the start to be decentralized. After 20+ years of people consolidating into centrally-controlled mega platforms, I’m happy to see things coming full circle.

    • MeowdyPardner@kbin.social
      12·
      1 year ago

      Agreed, platforms should compete by providing better UX and features, not by abusing network effects and walling off themselves to hold communities and accounts hostage. In a way the fediverse provides a common carrier that is neutral to the users and platforms connected to it, which enables competition in the same way that guaranteeing equal access to physical internet infrastructure to new ISPs is essential to preventing ISP monopolies.