I think the real test will be when these API rules go into effect at the end of the month. Will all these people who showed solidarity the last two days leave the site then, or will they just quietly download the official app and continue on?
People are ADDICTED to Reddit. So much so that they are using Reddit as their primary resource to talk about how much they hate it.
Once the craziness around the API stuff dies down and it's time to stop using Reddit for good, I'm willing to bet nearly all of these people cave in some way.
I never realized how much some people rely on Reddit for social interaction. It's truly fascinating.
Also, their unwillingness to even consider using other platforms.
I'm sort of one of them? I mean I'm married, got my own place, now got a stable job etc, but I barely ever see my friends (all moved away), and my work friends from an old job I have just lost touch with.
Trying to replace the online social life with Lemmy, maybe something like IRC? Who knows.
If people have to download a new app to replace apollo, sync, RIF, etc then they should download Jerboa and sign up to Lemmy. If you're gonna have to get used to a different app interface nows the time!
I agree, but the whole "instances" and federation stuff can be overwhelming for the average user. As long as enough power users and content creators make the move, then Lemmy has a good shot long-term.
A 25% loss in overall user traffic would be a low number I think to an extent. This would be enough for the valuation of Reddit to drop. If anything, it would hurt spezs pockets.
At the start of all this when Christian first posted I figured I would just use some sort of workaround like old.reddit in mobile browser; the official app and new reddit are non-starters for me, it's just not how I browse.
However, in the days since I have been increasingly dismayed by Spez and the rest of the leadership response, a lack of interest in even engaging on the subject and outright hostility towards a community that has been dedicated to reddit for years. I can't see myself going back there, it's been poisoned for me.
I'm curious about the mod tools. Is it possible to moderate a small to medium sized subreddit without those tools? To me, the mods are the glue behind it all. If a subreddit goes off the rails because of bot spam and toxic/hate posts, people will just go elsewhere.
So if mods stop moderating because they don't have access to their tools, this will likely happen at one point or another.
My guess is, the downhill has already started. The remaining users just aren’t annoyed enough to migrate yet, but when the spam wave hits every sub, they are going to find Lemmy a lot more appealing.
Reddit has many people who talk about a topic, and it's searchable.
Daily I google/duckduckgo: site:reddit.com [recommendation] and get a discussion of products or software or question, etc.
Lemmy may have some of that, but obviously doesn't have as much because it's ramping. But to make matters worse, searching federated content is more difficult than searching a centralized site.
On the other hand, Reddits internal search is absolute garbage. I think if lemmy works in making an amazing search within the federation, it'll help bridge that gap and give lemmy something reddit doesn't have.