Imagine Lemmy becoming so popular it drives Reddit to support ActivityPub or go extinct
Reddit would become compatible with Lemmy essentially making it it's own "instance", and suddenly 3rd party apps work with Reddit again.
Full circle.
That wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing. Someone wrote a good article about how Google bullied their way to kill XMPP. Something to keep in mind with what Meta is planning.
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
Yep, instead of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish they did Embrace, Impede, Extinguish.
Yeah it's support a platform, make that platform dependent on you, then abandon the platform. The users who remain are left with the option of abandoning the platform as well, or sit in a graveyard.
Very good writeup. I remember learning about XMPP with gtalk and then it fading away. These things happen, and if we don't remember, well...
My mind has already closed to Reddit. At first it was surprising how quickly I abandoned it, but it’s not really. The Internet is a fast moving place, with sudden trends and viral content being the norm rather than the exception. I like Lemmy so far and it serves the same purpose, perhaps with its own problems but with pros that outweigh the cons. No one person or company owns it. That’s progress.
For me, it felt really easy to leave because I had zero social connections on Reddit. I'm not sure if I'm the weird one, but I never learned any individual users' names or felt ways about stuff, except in the rare case that they became a meme, like shittymorph. I was there for like 12 years and nothing tied me to it. Moving to the threadiverse was as easy as changing a bookmark.
That was also my experience on Reddit. Subreddits would sometimes have a culture in terms of the types of posts and comments that get upvotes, but I was never really aware of specific individuals.
I’ll certainly miss u/shittymorph.
I think we'll all be better off if we can keep Reddit and Meta✱, and Corporate Information out of the garden.
How to kill decentralized networks.
✱ now with legs
This was a fantastic read. Thank you so much for sharing it! I’ve started my own lemmy instance in hopes of making an instance available for “everybody” in my region, having the local culture as our common ground. But this helped me realize that it might maybe need a thought or two before pushing forward. Those who I thought would be a part of it aren’t those who would maybe want to give up traditional service for one fighting for freedom, ethics and morals.
Or lemmy kills reddit like reddit killed digg
I think Reddit is going to end up killing itself I don't think it needs help.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), AI bots did not exist at that time. Plus, Digg was only succesful for 2 - 5 years, while Reddit managed to get at least 12 succesful years in before turning violent on its users with the help of AI and advertisers.
Reddit's enshittification was delayed by COVID, but it happened nonetheless.
No thanks, it would be yet another EEE scheme.
I vote for extinct
I hope all major instances would immediately defederate
Best case scenario. As optimistic as I am about Lemmy, Reddit have a massive history which is going to suck to lose when it inevitably implodes like a submarine visiting the Titanic.
Reddit isn't fun
Mastodon is a "failed service" for only having 12 million daily active users. Twitter has 400 daily active users. History will likely repeat itself.
Lemmy, Kbin, and Calkey will never have Reddit numbers but we can still build a vibrant community here. Because this platform isn't a business we don't need huge numbers.
I don't think Reddit will go extinct (at lest, not for many more years), but I don't think it will federate either, because theyll find it even harder to make bank than they already do, espeially when most of the rest of the fediverse will likely immediately de-federate them as soon as they get a foot in the door.
It will dwindle to insignificance with a few die-hard users, like Yahoo, and eventually fizzle out through lack of funding. Or it will be re-purposed and used for something different, like Myspace, and be quietly successful in its new but much smaller role.
I can't wait to see it all burn.
It will be really enjoyable to watch if it ends up happening
reddit is still going quite strong with content and comments in even the most trivial of threads, which isn't bad at all for Lemmy or kin, just that the news od reddit's demise are pretty overstated
I'm more than happy to stay here though. The firehouse of content is so much more manageable
Reddit probably won’t die. I mean Facebook is still one of (the?) most popular social media sites. Not that anyone of interest makes it their main platform.
Imagine if that happened and then most instances defederate to prevent stealing of our data. Cause they‘d have to pay me more than they want for the API to get even one more word out of me.
All data on here is wide open for everyone to take, including reddit afaik
I would leave Lemmy then. Lemmy is the whole point to not have the CEO, but to own the "platform" by the community.
If Reddit federates, they would have no control over the other instances. You could still be on Lemmy. That's the whole point of federated sites, they talk to each other without a single sovereign authority.
In your dreams maybe
Please no, I didn't quit reddit to have reddit around me again.
We are the corp. You will be assimilated. Your meta and meme distinctiveness will be added to our own. Lower your mods and surrender your communities. Resistance is futile. - Reddit, probably
I mean, if they were to adopt ActivityPub and enable federation, you can pretty much guarantee they'd slap ads next to content pulled in from FOSS instances. Kinda their thing.
So who will be Locutus in that scenario
"We will take your lands, your children, your traditions, and your future."
Reddit federating would provide us with a much better API for 3rd partys. It would be the walk back of the century.
Did you forget to add /s to your comment?