The really reputable outlets will phrase it “'this [Lemmy] is… Journalism”’ claims user of the increasingly popular reddit alternative, in post positing the decline of all other forms of media."
Are we increasing though? I thought we plateaued or even dipped. e.g. lemmy.fediverse.observer/stats even says we dropped sharply, like 51k monthly active users in April compared to 47k now (this ignores the halfyear stats that iirc were affected by some technical changes), and the total users tanked from 1.9 mil to just 1.4 (though we surely don’t have that many lurkers, so a lot of those were surely bots/alts), and even servers went down.
Everyone that I’ve mentioned Lemmy to irl gives me a horrible look like why would you tell me about this TruthSocial-like place (except leftist instead of right-wing as that one is) that actively calls for public beheadings of e.g. landlords?
So we’ve got some… issues that are blocking our future growth, from reaching more mainstream audiences.
I’ll be honest, I hope Lemmy doesn’t reach a mainstream audience. It’s nice having a smaller site away from all the bullshit that will inevitably come with mainstream attention. We can say “just defederate! Join another instance” but when we get to a point where giant corpos are running instances that host 95% of users and 99% of content, we’ll be in the same boat as now if we defed, except that Lemmy will then have a mainstream (and thus mostly right of center) image. If this, or a little more, is all we’re ever really going to get on an open source platform that feels open source, I’m okay with that. I like seeing the same usernames around, and feeling like I found the internet equivalent of Stars Hollow, CT
On the one hand, we’re kinda awesome the way we are.:-) Perhaps a bit more content would be good though?
On the other, there’s like 50 people that generate virtually all the content, and they won’t necessarily be able to keep up that pace forever. If we aren’t sustainable, this project will die off. And I don’t mean like cease working, but rather lose our uniqueness, like what happened to Reddit, which technically remember still exists:-).
I hear you about “fully mainstream”, but I think we could stand to grow a bit more. What’s going on with mander.xyz and scientists/academics is awesome:-).
The horrified looks come on our subsequent visit, and then they refuse to talk about it again. I suppose it’s our dirty secret… that we use Lemmy btw.:-P
I’ve mentioned lemmy irl, too. Various times actually. Obviously no one knows it. But they usually don’t even know of mastodon or the fediverse either. And even reddit is just a name they’ve heard before. Everyone I know irl is on Instagram though.
But if you look at messages it has raised, so less accounts but more active. And I don’t know the rest but I’m not in a hurry to see Lemmy become as big as Reddit. I can wait a couple of years to grow at a faster rate.
dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
The really reputable outlets will phrase it “'this [Lemmy] is… Journalism”’ claims user of the increasingly popular reddit alternative, in post positing the decline of all other forms of media."
OpenStars@discuss.online 5 months ago
Are we increasing though? I thought we plateaued or even dipped. e.g. lemmy.fediverse.observer/stats even says we dropped sharply, like 51k monthly active users in April compared to 47k now (this ignores the halfyear stats that iirc were affected by some technical changes), and the total users tanked from 1.9 mil to just 1.4 (though we surely don’t have that many lurkers, so a lot of those were surely bots/alts), and even servers went down.
Everyone that I’ve mentioned Lemmy to irl gives me a horrible look like why would you tell me about this TruthSocial-like place (except leftist instead of right-wing as that one is) that actively calls for public beheadings of e.g. landlords?
So we’ve got some… issues that are blocking our future growth, from reaching more mainstream audiences.
dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
I’ll be honest, I hope Lemmy doesn’t reach a mainstream audience. It’s nice having a smaller site away from all the bullshit that will inevitably come with mainstream attention. We can say “just defederate! Join another instance” but when we get to a point where giant corpos are running instances that host 95% of users and 99% of content, we’ll be in the same boat as now if we defed, except that Lemmy will then have a mainstream (and thus mostly right of center) image. If this, or a little more, is all we’re ever really going to get on an open source platform that feels open source, I’m okay with that. I like seeing the same usernames around, and feeling like I found the internet equivalent of Stars Hollow, CT
OpenStars@discuss.online 5 months ago
It’s a double edged sword, that.
On the one hand, we’re kinda awesome the way we are.:-) Perhaps a bit more content would be good though?
On the other, there’s like 50 people that generate virtually all the content, and they won’t necessarily be able to keep up that pace forever. If we aren’t sustainable, this project will die off. And I don’t mean like cease working, but rather lose our uniqueness, like what happened to Reddit, which technically remember still exists:-).
I hear you about “fully mainstream”, but I think we could stand to grow a bit more. What’s going on with mander.xyz and scientists/academics is awesome:-).
morrowind@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Damn, you’ve mentioned lemmy irl? And other people have known about it?
OpenStars@discuss.online 5 months ago
Never once have they known about it already:-).
The horrified looks come on our subsequent visit, and then they refuse to talk about it again. I suppose it’s our dirty secret… that we use Lemmy btw.:-P
flora_explora@beehaw.org 5 months ago
I’ve mentioned lemmy irl, too. Various times actually. Obviously no one knows it. But they usually don’t even know of mastodon or the fediverse either. And even reddit is just a name they’ve heard before. Everyone I know irl is on Instagram though.
bufalo1973@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
But if you look at messages it has raised, so less accounts but more active. And I don’t know the rest but I’m not in a hurry to see Lemmy become as big as Reddit. I can wait a couple of years to grow at a faster rate.