📣 Apollo will close down on June 30th. Reddit’s recent decisions and actions have unfortunately made it impossible for Apollo to continue. Thank you so, so much for all the support over the years. ❤️
The next couple of weeks are going to be ROUGH here. New instances spinning up, and existing ones grinding to a halt under the weight of new users. This is going to be a hell of a stress test.
But it should also make this space truly viable for users. We should expect more people to bounce than to stay, but it's starting to look like we've already crossed a critical threshold for sustainability.
I'd rather the growth here be much more organic and discovery driven, than by a mass exodus of users from another platform all rushing in. Mobile app's were 'far' from being the only reason to leave Reddit.
I expect it to be similar to Mastodon but perhaps not quite as big. That said, that service has flexed pretty well thanks to the tireless efforts of many instance maintainers. Hopefully a similar passion and level of support emerges here.
Yeah. Lemmy doesn't need to be Reddit sized by tomorrow. For now we can just enjoy an older style of smaller forum community. All we can do is keep popping in to Reddit and letting people know about Lemmy. Keep helping people understand the decentralized structure. Keep fostering a welcoming and engaging community. Eventually we'll grow and I truly suspect we can outpace Reddit. It might be years or even a decade before that happens, but I believe it will happen as long as we keep this community active and growing.