we need more users
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I’m happy to promote it. I tried to get a few non-technical people to check it out. They felt it was too complicated. I’ve shared it with tech friends and coworkers who use Reddit. They’re aware of Lemmy to varying degrees, and are not enthused about moving to another platform despite hating Reddit.
I think it’s because despite Lemmy being a great alternative, it is more complicated and lacks the user base that users of other social media platforms have.
Bluesky is marginally more complicated than Twitter, but compared to Mastodon it is user friendly. Bluesky worked to create a dedicated, easy to use app that most users use.
Bluesky existed for a while before experiencing explosive growth. This occurred during moments of controversy with X. Bluesky capitalized on these moments, with champions on both platforms that led their followers to change, and there were mechanisms in place to bootstrap a user’s feed with the followers and topics that they had in the other place.
I think Lemmy needs to follow this model. There needs to be a Lemmy app that has a user experience as similar as possible with the Reddit app. It also needs champions that have main stream recognition (George Takei, Mark Hamill, etc.) that can be willing to make noise about switching from Reddit to Lemmy when the next controversy occurs. Repeat with more and more promotion by this evangelists, and Lemmy could grow.
George Takei, Mark Hamill, ...
If someone were to create a Markhamill@lemmy.world account, someone else can simply spin up a Markhamill@lemmings.world, and a Markhamill@Markhamilllemmy.world, and so on. Nobody is ever going to believe that any of those are actually Mark Hamill (especially since none are:-).
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I'll commit to commenting more. I prefer to lurk, but the fediverse needs me
As someone who's never made a post...
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too complicated
Nani? It's 2026, getting an account on some lemmy and start posting is nearly two orders of magnitude easier than trying to sign up to an email account!
That people are brainrotten due to excessive Fortnite and Instagram is,
unfortunately, not our problem. At some point, the answer is "just get better users".And answers like this are exactly why non techies don't join and we get posts like this. You're the problem
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I have been noticing a drop in post/comments diversity and quantity. The diminishing users is something noticeable and sad.
We're in times where we need to seek alternatives to big tech more than ever, and yet, people don't seem to care
it's not just not caring. lemmy is currently not a viable alternative for e.g. reddit (there are no active conmunities for any of mine hobbies and posting to any of those that are here doesn't make sense - there is nobody out here who could respond to a specific question about analog photography or something similar). fediverse as a whole will never reach the momentum of old centralized social media - by design. it turns out that having many small servers with different moderation policies is great for resilience but sucks for bringing people together. i found out recently that my mastodon server is blacklisted on many of mainstream ones not because there is some bad content there but because it federates with some servers that mods somewhere else consider harmful... and so i am missing large swats of content from those.
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I've been one of the people saying "we don't need more users. we need quality over quantity" and i was wrong.
the way it's going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.
So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.
edit: source for the graph
Unfortunately, most people are too unintelligent and lazy to learn about the reasons to support reddit-alternatives, and move to them.
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I've been one of the people saying "we don't need more users. we need quality over quantity" and i was wrong.
the way it's going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.
So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.
edit: source for the graph
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I've been one of the people saying "we don't need more users. we need quality over quantity" and i was wrong.
the way it's going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.
So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.
edit: source for the graph
How about bridging over to bluesky? If they could follow and comment threads, the userbase explodes 10-fold (compared to the current exposure to mastodon).
See this thread: https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/372
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The random one can send you to places like hexbear.net (I've tried the randomizer, and I'm not joking it actually truly did pick that very instance for me). Have you ever visited that place? It's like being sent to a leftist MAGA rally. If I was sent there, I'd nope out and never return to the Threadiverse again.
Another place the randomizer can send you is lemmy.ml. Have you seen all the posts calling for outright murder of people living in the Western world? Well, let's just say that a mainstream non-technical normie user who is currently living in a Western world is not likely at all to feel terribly welcomed there.
Hexbear is nothing like a leftist MAGA rally. It's more like a MAGA rally.
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Most people on Reddit avoid the larger subs like the plague though - but then when they come here, they don't know what to avoid or even to pay attention to, e.g. is !Chapotraphouse@hexbear.net a lively and fun, exciting place, or a toxic cesspit hellhole?
And at least that one is honest about what it is, whereas lemmy.ml markets itself as a community dedicated to discussing FOSS! (Which, among other things, yes is one of the variety of things discussed there, although somehow that description seems to be missing a fair bit of information that would have REALLY helped out a ton in educating people what communities to participate in).
If we defederate Hexbear and ml, that will go some of the way to easing those bad experiences for new users
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I've been one of the people saying "we don't need more users. we need quality over quantity" and i was wrong.
the way it's going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.
So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.
edit: source for the graph
I send my friends memes. They ask "Muad'dib, where do you get these great memes?" I say I get my great memes from Lemmy. They instantly lose interest, because Lemmy is full of tankies and kinphobes
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Please link
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Would the default instance be run by the app dev? Or in collaboration with some instance? It would maybe be risky to do with an unaffiliated instance because if they didn't like it they could disallow these types of accounts or signups.
Piefed.ca would be a great candidate, they have a nonprofit foundation or something dedicated to this kind of stuff
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They know there are other options, but they won't join us on the fediverse. That's because no celebrities or influencers have moved to the fediverse.
And as for reddit users, most of them just like "huh? I like staying here" or "the lemmy devs are tankies and lemmy is a toxic tankies dumpster"
But that's okay with me, at least we have fewer toxic people.
That's because no celebrities or influencers have moved to the fediverse.
George Takei
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I've been one of the people saying "we don't need more users. we need quality over quantity" and i was wrong.
the way it's going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.
So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.
edit: source for the graph
I think you're right
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If we defederate Hexbear and ml, that will go some of the way to easing those bad experiences for new users
ml is run by the devs of Lemmy so unfortunately that's not realistic, you could be missing on a ton of information if you want to subscribe to Lemmy development or information related communities
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Just talk up Lemmy, the issue is most people doesn't realize there's another option to the popular toxic trash fires.
Yeah. They could move to an unpopular toxic trash fire.
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I send my friends memes. They ask "Muad'dib, where do you get these great memes?" I say I get my great memes from Lemmy. They instantly lose interest, because Lemmy is full of tankies and kinphobes
This is the central reason I choose not to engage with most posts. It's a toss up whether I'm talking to a rational human being or I happened to walk into the side of the antinatalist hyper accelerationist ML willing to die to defend the most obscure take about consent or something.
I would love a more healthy, less terminally online discourse on Lemmy.
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Just wait and let Reddit have another controversy and we’ll get another infusion of converts.
Just wait
this is how something like Digg swoops in and steals all the users
Digg? Now with AI? That Digg? You mean the Digg that lost all its users to Reddit in the first place? Not happening.
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Would the default instance be run by the app dev? Or in collaboration with some instance? It would maybe be risky to do with an unaffiliated instance because if they didn't like it they could disallow these types of accounts or signups.
App dev can be outsource, but it really doesn't matter who run the hard coded instance. It could by. Sh.itjust.works. it would be an issue if the app took off and the instance wasn't ready for the influx.
Maybe it picks an instance at random to distribute the load.
My original idea in my head was that the app developer would run the instance that was hard coded
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Part of the issue (I feel a large part ) is that the learning curve is too steep to get on Lemmy
Now I'm not saying it's hard at all; but it's significantly higher than simply "go to a main page and create a user name and password". Lemmy needs a sign up page that just random signs you up to an active instance (per the instances permission) and automatically subscribes you to the 50 most active instances to just get you started up.
Making a getting started page that's as idiot proof as any .com would probably go a long ways into upping our numbers here.
Random instances are problematic. As others have said you might end up on one of the weird instances. More likely though... you just end up on a dead instance, take one look at the "local" feed and think that's all the content.
