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32 comments

  • I think there will need to be a re-invention/ re-write before the 'real' lemmy happens.

    The issues around discovery, identity and communities being attached to a server, and how this impacts the math of the networking aspect of the whole concept are really what is preventing Lemmy from not only beating social media like Reddit, but representing a major improvement. The project has grown enough to make that kind of re-investment of time more palatable, but as lemmy currently stands, the protocol is in the way.

    • We don't need to beat reddit. We don't need to beat anyone. There are no investors or shareholders. There are no stock listings. There are no ads or addictive algos. We are fine as we are now. There is no need for exponential growth. Lemmy should simply be.

      • We do need to continue growing at a natural but sustained rate. 50-60k is not a healthy place to stop and there's still a lot of low hanging fruit development-wise.

      • Yeah actually, being better matters. Projects like this die with stagnation and attitudes like yours. Sure they'll limp around for years with some core die hards or niche communities, but thats (see: fark, SA, usenet, CL ads, etc..), but that's not the point. Lemmys design is working against its self. Its not clear that it can be fixed under 'lemmy' as it currently exists.

        The experience can be much better and there is a clear path towards it. The basic math of how networks operate that creates this issue and its baked into the underlying structure of how lemmy was planned. If these improvements arent implemented, the platform will stagnate: all platforms that don't improve do this. They may persist but they fail to grow, and attrition is constant.

      • While I agree that we don't need to "beat" anything or strive for growth, I do think those things will happen naturally if the system is an improvement. And while lemmy's potential is great, there are challenges that come with federation, like those mentioned above. And those problems should be solved in time. Not to generate growth but to improve the system. Growth may follow

    • People who came here expecting a monolithic Reddit 2.0 will either leave for the hot new thing or centralize themselves on a few major mega-instances.
    • Smaller instances will be their own communities (in the general sense) and those that are similar enough will form "neighborhoods" (not in a defederation sense but in an unofficial "hey we talk between each other quite a lot" kinda ad-hoc sense)
    • There will be Lemmy forks (or several completely new software) that's explicitly aimed at the above mentioned smaller instances
      • Think of Glitch or Hometown over on Masto, or Akkoma
    • In a defederation sense, there will be a large and complex venn diagram of instance connections as instance admins take stances between reddit-style free-for-all and safer spaces (and yes, the occasional completely freeze-peach instances that'll get defederated from both)
      • Quite a few smaller instances will defederate or otherwise limit communication (assuming the options will exist) from above mega-instances as they'll be extremely lax on moderation to not lose the Reddit free-for-all audience.

    TLDR: Just look at the microblogging side of the fedi.

    • I hope the people who came here for the first one leave instead of making mega instances. We don't need that nonsense here.

  • The way I see it there are 2 paths forward for Lemmy. Without at least one of these scenarios occuring it seems unlikely that we'll get back to a level of natural growth.

    1. Reddit starts fucking up again. If this happens it'll probably be because of or sometime around the IPO so be on the lookout for that.
    2. We start getting significant user growth from other fediverse platforms, likely Mastodon. These users already understand how federation works and are actively looking for a lot of the features that Lemmy has to offer on their existing platforms. I think the way to get there is primarily through topic dedicated instances springing up as professional groups find Mastodon does not truly fit their needs. One recent example of this is links.esq.social which is a brand new currently unfederated instance for lawyers and legal professionals.

  • I already love it here, no notes 😅

    I guess if i had to make a prediction, maybe a significant chunk of the whole network will migrate over to Veilid protocol? Probably not, just throwing it out there

32 comments