Lemmy is a failed Reddit alternative

I first joined Lemmy back during the big Reddit exodus of last year. I like many others wanted an alternative to Reddit, and I thought that this might've been the one. I made two accounts, one on lemmy.world and another on sh.itjust.works, in the June of last year that I used on and off for about 4 months.

At first Lemmy was exciting because it was so active. There were so many new users who were enthusiastic about turning this platform into a genuine alternative. There was a communal effort to create and interact with content, and for awhile it worked. Lemmy was truly interesting during the summer of last year. However, this stream of dedicated users started to slowly decline.

A lot of people hoped that if they were active, they would attract and retain more users to this place to the point where the community would foster interest specific communities like Reddit, but that never happened. After a few months, a lot of users lost interest and went back to Reddit where the userbase is so massive that there is an active community for just about anything.

With this reverse exodus back to Reddit, Lemmy ended up with the same groups that were active on it before hand: political extremists, tech nerds, privacy enthusiasts, and shitposters. To be fair, all these groups are larger now than they were a year ago, but that's all this platform has to offer. If you're into any of these things and primarly these things then Lemmy can be a good alternative to Reddit, but for the general masses? Lemmy is just not good.

For example, a NBA post on the NBA subreddit can get you thousands of interactions in a couple of hours. An NBA post on here will maybe get you a dozen over the course of a couple of days. The only content that will gain any traction here are tech news, political propaganda, and maybe some memes. I don't see this changing any time soon. Even if Reddit implodes, I still think Lemmy will remain a niche platform. I think this evident by the fact that this platform hasn't really progressed in a year.

JimSamtanko ,

ROFL….

MikeOToxin ,

But why do you care about engagement with your online posts? Is your opinion that important? Or is it just your need for external validation from the faceless masses?

Either way, some introspection may be good here.

Or, ya know, just go back to reddit, whatever dude.

Gorilladrums21 OP ,

The whole point of social media is to interact with others... I don't understand what you're point is here. You just seem mad because I said something you don't like.

MikeOToxin ,

Well, you're here, yelling into what you seem to consider an 'empty void'.

Why?

Also, your *

kylie_kraft ,

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    MikeOToxin ,

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    Kolanaki ,
    @Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

    I mean... People come to social media to, you know.... Socialize. I don't post shit and just want upvotes. I wanna talk to people about whatever the post is about.

    MikeOToxin ,

    OP's wording is very... Seeking when they talk about posting 'get[ting] you thousands of interactions'.

    You think they're replying to those 'thousands' of people? No. They're getting thousands of up votes, and that's what they're missing on lemmy.

    jimmydoreisalefty ,
    @jimmydoreisalefty@lemmy.world avatar

    Change is not easy, it takes time and people willing to help foster that new change.

    I am one of those people that is really into politics, but I try to interact with other communities once in a while!

    It is an election year, so politics is always in an all time high on any forums and social media.

    I suggest, if you are willing, to step up your game and be really active in the communites you would like to see flourish.

    It may be lonely, but it tends to be when starting new things!

    We are all trying the best we can, when we can, I give props to the lemmyverse and fediverse for all they do!

    Thanks for posting, even if you used a burner account!

    Gorilladrums21 OP ,

    That's kind of the point that I was making. This platform has little to offer outside a outside of politics, tech, and shitposting. Most of the active users are here for these specific topics, which is fine, but this places Lemmy as a niche platform not one that appeals the masses. A few dedicated people can't foster a genuine community out of sheer enthusiasm. If that was the case then Lemmy would've regressed after the influx of last summer. You could be right, maybe people like you will lead this platform to grow into something more in a few years. I just don't personally see that happening.

    jimmydoreisalefty ,
    @jimmydoreisalefty@lemmy.world avatar

    Thanks for clarifying and going further into explaining your views to us!

    Some people can be seen as being a dreamer[1], I see myself as such a person, I try to stay hopeful, I see it as a much more positive way of living in the world; as well as much healthier for our mental health

    Lemmy as a niche platform not one that appeals the masses

    Yes, Lemmy is currently a niche platform, but that is how many start off, it takes time and much effort to grow a community.

    It is similar to grassroots movements, where people that are leaders or learn to become one are willing to speak with anyone for a cause they feel strongly about, and they start to grow slowly.

    I see lemmy in that phase or light, where most activity will be from people that are willing to throw themselves out there and share their favorite hobbies and put in the energy to interact with strangers (whether it may be apositive or negative interaction is another thing).

    It takes time for people to come out of their shells and to start being active on forums as well, hopefully in Lemmy we give people that opportunity to grow as people and to take chances to meet and discuss any topic with strangers.

    A few dedicated people can’t foster a genuine community out of sheer enthusiasm.

    Well, it takes a few to start something new, in my eyes all important causes and projects start with a few people just having fun or putting the time to create something new.

    To accomplish anything in life, it will take time and a lot of energy and people willing to do that.

    I just don’t personally see that happening.

    It is okay to see the world in that way, but just putting a bit of effort into sharing or creating a community that you like, will help improve the community.

    Activity would increase, if you create a community or decide to share more of your hobbies and opinions within those communities.

    If the communities would be liked by Lemmurs or not, it is another matter, but in the end of the day we all have our own way of seeing the world and we can have discussions with people that are willing to share their views as well.

    The only way we can continue to grow as people, is by forcing ourselves to push against our own bias and to keep talking with people that do not think or agree with what we have to say.

    [1] Supertramp - Dreamer [03:31] https://youtu.be/B885n08hOmw

    Much text to read, here is a Lemmur for a fun pic:

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/45081fad-67a9-4c1a-8743-65b2a8826910.jpeg

    vk6flab ,
    @vk6flab@lemmy.radio avatar

    I am part of the Reddit exodus. I'm here because I have no interest in promoting or supporting the atrocious policies that now govern Reddit.

    The pace here is different, but the interactions feel more measured.

    Based on being online since 1990, I'm comfortable with being an "early adopter", even though I've only been here for a few months and Lemmy is five years old.

    Will Lemmy survive? Who knows. The horse and buggy didn't, neither did Yahoo!, MySpace or Google+, but here we are nonetheless.

    I like it here.

    Gorilladrums21 OP ,

    I mean good for you, I'm glad you're happy here. But here's a question for you, do you honestly think that this platform has the potential to be more than what it is currently? Platforms come and go, true, but it's very rare for a platform to actually appeal to the general masses. MySpace at its peak had 90 million active users, Google+ had 200 million users, Yahoo still has around 700 million people use its services. While these sites ended up being failures, they still reached mainstream status. I don't think Lemmy will die, but I don't see it becoming a mainstream alternative to Reddit. I see it as an upgraded version of Voat. It's a platform that will remain niche unless something drastic changes.

    vk6flab ,
    @vk6flab@lemmy.radio avatar

    I think that the missing link for the fediverse is the user interface that most users see.

    This is oxymoronic given that the original Reddit looks eerily similar to Lemmy today, but it's not just looks I'm talking about.

    Moderation and usability tools, bots, blocks, filtering and spam control need to go through several iterations before we can actually grow this community.

    Search is another issue, as is post deletion. Right now a post vanishes, but all the stuff hanging off it is still there. This makes for a complex user experience.

    Finally, Lemmy appears to be run by developers who appear to be interested in their own issues and regularly appear to dismiss issues raised by users. This is not sustainable.

    I consider myself a user of the fediverse before I'm a Lemmy or Mastodon user. We have a way to go before this settles down.

    nutomic ,
    @nutomic@lemmy.ml avatar

    Finally, Lemmy appears to be run by developers who appear to be interested in their own issues and regularly appear to dismiss issues raised by users. This is not sustainable.

    I would love to fix all the issues that users report, but for that we would need about ten times as many developers. The way it is we simply don't have enough time to work on everything, and need to prioritize things.

    Johanno ,

    Well well well.

    This is a weird way to see it.

    You have definitely less people here than on reddit. And the kind of people that even consider leaving reddit because of the reason we left and then chosen lemmy are usually mostly tech nerds. Other people don't care and stay at reddit or twitter or go to the Facebook clone threads.

    Your goal here should be information, fun and entertainment.

    I personally also read reddit aside to lemmy, but I first go to lemmy and then to reddit. Yes reddit is bigger and has a more active community but it is mostly toxic and ads infested. Without revanced I couldn't stand it.

    Gorilladrums21 OP ,

    The area where Reddit shines is the big communities for non political topics. Here there isn't an active community, let alone a large one, for any topic that isn't politics, tech, or memes. There's nothing here that appeals to average people like sports, gaming, science, cooking, gardening, etc. I thought this would change, at least a little, over the course of a year, but that didn't really happen. As toxic and ad infested as Reddit is, I don't see Lemmy becoming a mainstream alternative to it.

    rimu ,
    @rimu@piefed.social avatar

    Sports - https://piefed.social/topic/sports-fitness
    Gaming - https://piefed.social/topic/gaming
    Science - https://piefed.social/topic/science
    Cooking - https://piefed.social/topic/food
    Gardening - https://lemmy.world/c/gardening

    It is understandable that you didn't find those communities, discoverability is a real issue with Lemmy. I have tried to solve this by curating communities into groups of Topics - https://piefed.social/topics

    Boozilla ,
    @Boozilla@lemmy.world avatar

    Lemmy is missing:

    • Bots
    • Karma farmers
    • Ads
    • Insane mods
    • Fucking Spez

    You know you're right, we're nothing like reddit!!

    Gorilladrums21 OP ,

    I mean Lemmy shares a lot of the same issues as Reddit even if it's decentralized. I think Lemmy as a technology is better than Reddit because it's more privacy focused, but most people don't care about any of this. People put up with Reddit's shortcomings because it has a massive community that is always active and fills every niche. Reddit's daily active userbase is over 73 million. That's hard to replicate in general, but I don't see Lemmy getting anywhere near that mainstream. I see it as a more stable and active version of Voat, but still a niche platform nonetheless.

    Boozilla ,
    @Boozilla@lemmy.world avatar

    Niche <> bad.

    Gorilladrums21 OP ,

    It's not bad, but niche is just that. For a platform to become a genuine alternative to Reddit, it needs to appeal to the mainstream.

    tyler ,

    You do realize that’s why Reddit went down the shitter right? Appealing to the mainstream is literally what got us to the point that everything is filled with ads and misinformation.

    chiisana ,
    @chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.net avatar

    It is probably best to think nothing on Lemmy is private. Any instance with at least one user subscribed to a community will receive updates (messages and votes) on the community. Instance admin can go into the database to see any private message between any user on that instance.

    scrubbles ,
    @scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

    Lol dude got the exact things wrong about Lemmy - clear they haven't spent much time here. Fediverse is NOT privacy focused, in fact it's the opposite. You blast your content out to everyone. The only privacy is your username, and that aint much. It's user owned, that's the saving grace, that corporate doesn't own it. We sacrifice fake corporate privacy for open standards.

    helenslunch ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    Reddit didn't get to 73 million overnight. It took them decades. Lemmy only gets 1 year?

    Blaze ,
    @Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

    Also, 73 million seems exaggerated, or that's counting the bots

    morphballganon ,

    Actually I have heard of some insane mods

    Kaboom ,

    Fucking gallowboob, is he still a thing?

    Blaze ,
    @Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

    There are some power tripping mods, thankfully there are only a few

    marcos ,

    There's an ecosystem of entire instances with crazy rules.

    The fact that Lemmy just doesn't become unusable with all this brokerage tells a lot about the benefits of a distributed system.

    jordanlund ,
    @jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

    I do kind of miss the private clubs. I had worked my way up through 100K, 150K, 200K and 300K karma clubs before I bailed and came here.

    Centennial Club was just the best. It was like Century Club, but way nicer!

    LibertyLizard ,
    @LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net avatar

    I don’t think it is failed. It has reached self-sustaining levels for many topics. It will need further growth to make smaller, niche topics self-sustaining. Whether this growth will take place is an open question. I know my instance is growing in terms of activity, but I’m not sure how others are faring.

    But as long as it isn’t shrinking, I think it’s well-positioned to absorb more growth as users discover it or become disillusioned with Reddit or other sites in the future.

    Gorilladrums21 OP ,

    I think a big issue with Lemmy is that I think there's a lot of people who become disillusioned with it, just like how a lot of users became disillusioned with Reddit. When users join this site, they'll immediately notice that there's nothing outside of extremist politics, privacy focused tech talk, and shitposting. Unless they're interested in those topics specifically, a lot of people would rather either just go back to Reddit where there are active communities outside of these topics or find another, more active platform. A lot of people thought that Voat was going to rival Reddit when launched, but it ended up being a niche hub for extremist politics, tech talk, and shitposting until it shutdown. Now Lemmy is definitely better than Voat in every aspect, but I'm not sure how it can over come that big hump that will allow to appeal to general public

    chiisana ,
    @chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.net avatar

    There’s also the problem that sadly Lemmy is filled with vocal users with skewed view of the world, and they tend to be extreme polarizing. The “if you’re not one of us, who firmly believes the world should work a certain way, and if you’re not willing to shoot yourself in the foot with a shotgun to prove it as a point, then you’re one of them; you should get the eff off of Lemmy and crawl back to Reddit” kind of way. They’re so scared of losing that pedestal that they’re going to go out of their way to alienate anyone who doesn’t drink their koolaid and push them off the platform so they can remain dominant. Sadly, these people also never really learned much of the real world, so those that are more experienced / educated gets pushed off the platform, and we end up with a bunch of weird superstonk culty kind of vibe everywhere.

    I find myself more and more just make a comment and don’t look back. It’s quite literally futile and pointless trying to expect any discussion of any actual sustenance. You wonder why it’s just shitposting… well this is why.

    mctoasterson ,

    This summarizes it pretty well. Two things can be true at once. Reddit sucks ass and I haven't gone back since the API changes. Simultaneously, the default Lemmy experience is extremely offputting to all but certain subcultures. Not everyone is a antiwork activist, Arch Linux evangelist, open socialist, or actively transitioning. Totally fine that all these groups have their communities, but it gets kinda old seeing 90% of the feed filled with these topics.

    Blaze ,
    @Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

    Feel free to block those communities.

    Then stuff like !casualconversation or !parenting will emerge

    kbal , (edited )
    @kbal@fedia.io avatar

    I'd not yet call it failed, but it's not yet fully succeeded either. To my mind, one impediment is something that lemmy.world shares with today's reddit: If you look at the front page it's 99% memes and images. That's the first impression people get, and it probably drives away a lot of people who might want anything else. We need those people to make more text-based communities come alive, if it's to evolve into anything like the old reddit.

    I mean obviously there are lots of people who do mostly want to see memes and that's fine, but I think it's getting to the point where it might be useful to have an option that filters out all posts that are just a title and an image.

    over_clox ,

    If you don't like Lemmy, you already know where to go. Enjoy Spez, the ads, the selling of your data to train AI, etc..

    Kolanaki ,
    @Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

    I feel the exact opposite.

    Lemmy is great because the sports guys and other normies aren't here.

    AstralPath ,

    This sums up my love for the Fediverse.

    mozz ,
    @mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

    political extremists, tech nerds, privacy enthusiasts, and shitposters

    Dude thank god

    I miss my old nerd internet. I won’t say you’re wrong for wanting something that isn’t that, but I personally wish it was more that way than it currently is. SDF or mander is honestly a lot closer to how I like the culture and interactions to be, than Lemmy.world. I was super psyched when I came on and there were all these communists and science weirdos.

    for the general masses? Lemmy is just not good.

    For example, a NBA post on the NBA subreddit can get you thousands of interactions in a couple of hours. An NBA post on here will maybe get you a dozen over the course of a couple of days.

    Honestly, when sports started showing up on the main page of Reddit it was confusing and alarming to me. I recognize that I am the weird one here (from the POV of the ordinary person society), but I much prefer just having my nerd stuff and having it be unencumbered by any normal person stuff

    I think we actually have exactly the same view of Lemmy and its accurate position in relation to most normal people, just disagreeing over whether that is or isn’t a good thing

    Blaze ,
    @Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

    Mander and SDF are great instances

    rrrurboatlibad ,

    Meh, it works for me. I like it here more than reddit. Sorry that you haven't found your groove. It toom me a while of finding the right things to subscribe and right folks to follow before my feed felt fun and interesting. I use Lemmy as a jumping off point for rabbit holes that are interesting to me

    Carrolade ,

    Don't underestimate the power of shitposting.

    That said, the Fediverse products are still behind in features, polish and ease-of-use. The mainstream prizes these surface-level things more than any others. It will take years of development still to fully catch up in that regard. So, it's the long-haul.

    sunzu ,

    Mbin is getting there from UX perpesctive imho

    cloudless ,
    @cloudless@lemmy.cafe avatar

    I disagree.

    • Mbin's terminology (inherited from Kbin) is annoying. Thread vs post vs magazine, boost vs upvote etc are unconventional and annoying.
    • No default sort option. Every time I want to see new posts, I have to manually select "new"
    • User instance and community instance are hidden
    • Difficult to manage/view subscribed magazines
    • Image upload dialogue is confusing

    Lemmy has alternative UI such as Voyager and Photon, they are way ahead of Mbin in terms of look and feel.

    What do you like about Mbin's UX?

    Blaze ,
    @Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

    At least 3 communities thar are not "tech news, political propaganda and memes"

    Feel free to contribute there, I guess it's easier to criticize than build something

    lambalicious ,

    Not to mention everything community about cats!

    ekZepp ,
    @ekZepp@lemmy.world avatar
    Blaze ,
    @Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

    Are they all active ? I just opened !horror and the last post was 18 days ago

    ekZepp ,
    @ekZepp@lemmy.world avatar

    Most of them are more active of that one.

    Blaze ,
    @Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

    Good to know, thanks!

    KazuchijouNo ,

    You might be right, Lemmy is not for the masses... I would consider myself a tech nerd, privacy enthusiast and shitposter; so migrating from Reddit was the best thing to ever happen to me. This place feels like a real home where I can share my interests with people who are incredibly helpful, kind and passionate about what they do. This place is a heaven for people trying to escape corporate and mass media. And I agree with you, Lemmy is a failed Reddit alternative, because it's not a Reddit alternative, I don't see it like that anymore. People here are genuine, I love that <3

    Today ,

    Not a tech nerd or privacy enthusiast -just an old mom who occasionally shitcomments. I like it here.

    land ,
    @land@lemmy.ml avatar

    Exactly. On Reddit you get roasted for asking a simple question like wtf. Lemmy is the way.

    scrubbles ,
    @scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

    Oh so you're saying all Reddit users literally eat babies?

    /s. The vitriol on that site was just exhausting.

    KazuchijouNo ,

    Are you suggesting that they are individuals? I mean, have you ever seen every Reddit user in the same room? Exactly! they are all the same 3 people replying to themselves (or so they seem to me).

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