I don't think it'll die... but it is a community that needs to be built basically from the ground up, while both the Lemmy/fediverse backend technology and infrastructure are actively being developed. Reddit refugees who want a drop-in alternative to doomscroll will probably be the first to leave.
The success or failure will be determined by the number of people willing to make an effort to post. Whether Lemmy (or the fediverse in general) will exceed the numbers of other services... I doubt it, but we wouldn't be here if we only cared about numbers.
This place has existed for a lot longer than the last month.
I’m having fun here and it’s scratching my online discussion itch. I’ve barely been back to Reddit and when Apollo dies I think I will not go back at all. 16 years on Reddit and almost 300K karma.
I was pretty happy I was able to find my first answer on Google by using lemmy.world in the search today
I have high hopes for Lemmy sticking around. The explosion in users around all the Reddit drama will likely have some of them stick around, which will be a net positive. It may not be good for “doom scrolling” any time soon, but it’s really nice to see some lively conversations in communities that are just starting to really blossom.
I’ll be here. I like that it takes a little more effort, it’s a little cumbersome or gatekeepy, but it also seems to keep the vibe more like the early internet and less like whatever it has currently turned into.
It reminds me of crypto spaces but without the incentive and monetization of action that seems to lead to a scammy and disingenuous feel to the content.
I'm ride or die once my 3PA stops working, so I hope it sticks around.
Gotta say, it would be more attractive if every other post wasn't a meta post about the platform and/or reddit. I hope we get some bots capable of ripping reddit posts and slapping them into Lemmy communities. As much as I'd like to pretend I'm a man of culture, sometimes I want shitposts and Tiktok reposts of someone's dog being stupid...
Two things to bear in mind...
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Lemmy existed before this current reddit fiasco, so it will exist after
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there are a critical mass of users now, and imo the userbase will continue to grow, with more and more unique content added
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Android / iOS apps are out, and in development. Mod tools are coming (iirc). As fediverse becomes less technical / easier to use, it's only going to attract more people
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It's been going for 4 years now. I think the worst case scenario is it falls back to the numbers it had before this reddit incident.
It depends on the growth curve. Right now it's exponential, which means it will keep growing. When you see it stay linear for a while, it'll probably start to flatten. At that point, it's either big enough to stick or it's not.
While everyone wants to constantly cry about it not being Reddit - the fact that people are flocking here hand over fist over the more direct 1 for 1 Reddit clones shows that people do understand that we need to go back to a more decentralized web. Even if this doesn't hit critical Reddit size mass, there's enough of us to keep each other company ❤️
Define "a few weeks"
The blackout started 12-06 which is 2 + weeks ago.
Lemmy and Kbin are still here and I see no sign of it slowing down. I see much more posts with more engagement which is a good thing.
I hope they're going to find a way to make the whole federation thing less messy, otherwise I don't think Lemmy is going to be as big as Reddit ever was.
Also they have to solve the front page, where new topics are loading in from the TOP pushing everything down. Really annoying.
It existed for years before reddit had its issue.
On the other side of the fediverse that's more like Twitter, Elon Musk pissed a bunch of people off and we've seen a few waves of new users. How it has worked is there's an inrush of people, some people go "Wait a minute, this isn't my old platform! I don't like it!" and go back, some people stick around.
Once people start to realize how friggin' cool the fediverse as a whole is, I think a bunch of people stay. Especially realizing that it takes all power away from corporate overlords and gives a lot of power to people who run their own instances.
I think its community has grown permanently. It just depends how much of who's here is part of that growth. When the dust settles, I bet people will go back to reddit or somewhere else. But when that time comes, who will be part of the remnants? 50% of us? More? Less? I have no idea.
I think an important step in pumping that percentage up is to stop asking about this. Every day seemingly dozens of people ask this same question about Lemmy's future. This might be pessimistic, but at this point I'm beginning to think many people are either expecting or hoping for Lemmy to fail.
I think people will vent and quite a decent percentage will return to reddit eventually. Like it happened with twitter since Elon did his thing. But lemmy will stay. It has been here before all the people migrated from reddit and the fediverse in general will keep having a right to exist. And it will.
Lemmy has been around for quite a while, well before any of the recent issues. The userbase will probably die back once people get bored and go back to Reddit but some of us will still be here
It all depends on if Reddit continues to make decisions with disastrous optics. If this is the one and only user bump Lemmy will get off the back of Reddit, I can see it dying down in the future, but if there's more I think it'll take flight and eventually start snowballing on its own merits. I'm not sure if it'll ever be mainstream, but it'll persist - as it was before all this.
I like it. It's not reddit and I like that about it most. I think it will stay and grow. I think we know what we don't want now and Lemmy could just be it.
Either way I'm done with reddit.
Lemmy might pass for various reason, but the protocol wont. It's here to stay until a better protocol comes along
I'm here to stay, and Reddit was my only social media before. But was on that site so many years and it did get shitter over time. Lemmy isn't overrun yet, it's nice.
I think it's here to stay, and it makes me hopeful that we can get a somewhat mainstream version of the Internet as originally envisioned. The corpo hellscape we have right now is garbage.
If lemmy can get the search algorithm to work well, it'll be good for a decent while I think... I hope for the sake of the internet everything needs to have some form of competition, and if Lemmy truly becomes the new reddit, hopefully we all learn what they did wrong and can make it better so that we as a collective have the best website/forum/memebase that's humanly possible
I sure as hell hope so. After everything that's happened over at Reddit I don't feel like going back. I'm not one to come back to an abusive relationship ya know? So like yeah I hope Lemmy lasts it seems to hold up well against the Sands of time at the very least, if it lasts as long as Reddit and things go south instead of having to jump ship, you can just migrate servers. Plus, at least at this point in time, there have been no red flags, all we need is for the userbase to participate.
Edit: Typo
I think and hope the fediverse will thrive in the years to come. It's the only way for us users to keep control over the platforms we use and feed.
It's time for the healthier internet we deserve. Networks like Facebook and Twitter have pushed toxic content to their users solely on the purpose of creating engagement. The World would be a very different place if that content had been moderated correctly instead of being pushed toward suggestible population.
I won't go back.
It all depends on us. I hope for more servers that FEDERATE - I'm trying hard to cut /r/ out of my life... if we do that, lemmy and the fediverse can live on... Will you?
pAULIE42o
Mate, it wasn't just created. This site has been around for a while
I don't know about you but I'm here to stay. Also, you need to define "die", since lemmy existed long before reddit drama and will be here after their downfall even if users leave it'll continue to exist.
I think it will grow some more when apps stop working on July 1, especially lemmy.world.
After that, we’ll see how erratic and Musk-esque the reddit leadership becomes.
I belive that enough critical mass has been reached for Lemmy to stick around. I sure as hell am not going back to reddit. But, to see Lemmy grow, I feel it would be better for users to be spread out across multiple instance.
Lemmy isn't going to "die" anytime soon, it has already been around for about 4 years now, it's not going anywhere..
Maybe activity will significantly slow down, maybe it will go back to being a super small community, but I don't see it completely getting killed anytime soon.
It won't die if we stick around and grow these communities that we've just joined
We'll have to wait and see but I think this last issue with Reddit has given Lemmy enough of a boost that it will get the required amount of momentum.
It won't be long before a lot of the classic subs are reproduced over here and new users will be able to turn up and slot straight in and carry on doing what they were doing over there all pretty seamlessly.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of the most active posters made the jump as they are likely providing a much higher percentage of the content than the average user. It's those people that will really make a difference.
I also think having Fediverse alternatives to so much corporate social media and how well it cooperates with each other is also key. I am busy moving myself over to these services and I am liking what I see. It will always occupy a layer under the corporate one but that might be a good thing - like them act as the bullet magnet and let us just get in with things.
Definitely will stay around, yet, realistically speaking, I don't have much expectations about this endeavor even scratching reddit's monopoly in the next 1 ~ 3 years (I hope I'm mistaken), who knows what will happen in 10 or 20
I'm here for the long haul. Reddit was simultaneously the best and worst of the internet, Fediverse seems to be prioritising the best. Now that the apps are starting to hit the public, there's no going back.
I think it will last, but little Reddit will as well, though possibly in a lesser state as some subs move here or elsewhere
While I plan on using this platform for the forseeable future - I don't have too high hopes.
I think it will probably go the way Mastodon is going. A few weeks of being "hot", then dropping off until it's pretty much business as usual, as it was before being the hot new thing. Don't get me wrong, I want Lemmy to succeed and replace reddit, but I wouldn't bet money on it.
I'm interested to see the outcome of Reddit, since I've been there for almost a decade, but I'm kinda liking the change to lemmy and I definitely don't support Reddit's decisions or direction. I think I'm going to stay here and delete my Reddit account once I see the results of the 30th
Mastodon is there. And there are enough people to interact with. Not as big as Twitter by any means, but for now it's big enough to use if you find a good Community.
Lemmy would be similar, for now won't even come close to reddit size. But if good communities move here those would stick around.
I think it will last. Soon there will be more apps and some patches for bugs, that will make it an even nicer place to keep sharing thoughts and info.
I’ll certainly be staying. I like it here so far!
I would like to think this is my new home, but I still have a lot of learning to do about the fediverse. I won't be going back to Reddit and using their garbage app and site, but I also still need to learn how to maneuver this new land before it can be a true alternative for me
I hope it lasts, maybe not with a huge number of users but I can live with that.
I'm confident that the Fediverse will last. Sure, there's a lot of challenges with having nodes that can choose to not federate with each other; However, a large majority should federate over time so there can be cross-collaboration. At its worst case, we'll have some segmented nodes that, while unfederated, will still foster good communities. Nodes will come and go.
While these large, centralized services for social media exist, people will always gravitate toward convenience. Unless catastrophe strikes, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. will always exist. But the fediverse gives us choice in a system where we generally had no choice but to use those platforms. After all, the alternative was old Forums that still had a solid userbase while other Forums collapsed and disappeared. If you provide a similar or better service to centralized services that is also convenient and user-friendly, then people will join the fediverse.
At the moment it is nascent, complex, and requires some confidence. Things that seem simple such as searching for another Community on another instance and joining it can be difficult for users to grasp. Over time this will get better.
Having grown up alongside the internet in its infancy, I've been very appreciative to experience the way in which it has changed over time. We're seeing another gradual shift, and a massive user base will associate with the fediverse. It's not going anywhere, but it certainly will never topple these massive corporations that have invested heavily into centralizing power, capturing the regulators and markets, and establishing themselves as information cartels that feast on the flow of money in the economy (read: parasitic leeches).
At the end of the day, I couldn't care less about these other social media platforms. I've embraced decentralization and am having a blast here with the fediverse. It reminds me of the earlier days of the internet. I'm excited to see where this evolves and also watch it grow.
Lemmy is turning into a left-wing echo chamber. The mods have declared that right-leaning opinions are not welcome and are defederating from any right-leaning instances. If you declare that half the population is not welcome, you're really limiting your reach. It's also going to be a pain to have two logins, one for lemmy.world and one for the free speech instances.
I'm staying
As long as Instances don't defederate other instances over petty issues , this should go strong.
Lemmy will definetly last! I hope so at least. it might never go mainstream, but that a good thing.
It won't die in "a few weeks", simply because the likelihood of everybody abandoning ship in such a short timeframe is pretty much zero.
It will almost certainly become irrelevant after some years (we just don't know how many) because almost nothing remains relevant on the Net for more than a decade or two, though even "irrelevant" things still attract a few people so they rarelly "die".
Edit: Also and as a side note, I've actually been questioning just how many people needs to be around here for it to be a good place to be in. I don't think the "millions" of people of Reddit actually added to it and suspect that a few tens of thousand of users are enough for the place to feel interesting to be in and participate in, except perhaps in very obscure and niche subjects were you do need millions of people around for there to be a handful that are interested in such subjects.
Im new here on Lemmy. So far it seems a little confusing coming from Reddit. But I really hope it lasts. From what I can tell there is a good community here.
I intend to be here for the long run, and I don’t think I’m alone in that mentality.
I think for Lemmy to really pop off, some proper iOS apps is needed. There's a few in testflight (using memmy atm) but that's far too complicated for a regular person to do. I'm also finding a lot of things a bit unintuitive, especially after being used to how reddit works. Might just be the app I'm using, but finding new communities and content is a bit cumbersome.
Will definitely loose some users because of small things that come with using something like this. At the end of the day, people are attached and will go back to reddit. That doesn't mean though, that there won't still be a bunch of people using lemmy.
Voat, a previous Reddit competitor, managed to survive for years, even though it attracted a much more niche audience than Lemmy.
Same question was asked about the open internet by Prodigy, AOL, and CompuServe users.
You can’t put “open” back in the bottle once you let it out. Use of the ActivityPub standard will only increase.
Well, as long as I am around it is not going to die as a I am not leaving Fediverse. And I am specific about it being the fediverse as even if Kbin and/or Lemmy die, there will be others that will take over, I am 100% sure. Whether it will actually surpass Reddit, I have no clue. But I am not sure whether I even care.
And not because I hate Reddit or anything like that. I am just really into what fediverse stands for and even a week ago with half of the users it scratched my itch as Reddit had done previously.
Like honestly, I don't even feel that strongly about Reddit and spez but Lemmy provide all I need so far, from meta stuff, through inteligent conversations to memes.
If we stay engaged and committed to lemmy, then it will survive. There's already a lot of growing activity here, let's hope it's the flywheel the platform needs.
Itll last I just joined today and got 3 people to join. Gonna start ripping posts from reddit and slapping them to lemmy
Seeing a post like this with over 100 comments makes me think that it's going to last, but scrolling down and seeing 25+ posts in a row with zero comments concerns me. It could be a federation/Jerboa/other issue though, I'm still not 100% on everything works and connects, plus I imagine the sudden rapid growth is hurting it for now but that should settle eventually
It's really up to us to keep it going. I think it will make it.
This site gives me reddit in 2011 vibes. Loving it
I hope everything works out and we can break away from reddit!
Mass migrations are always uphill battles. I've seen too many similar cases that appeared to start strong but lacked the momentum to put down their roots. We'll have a much better chance if just a handful of the top r/ can convince their u/ to move here.
Define die. It's been slowly growing for the last 3 years. If it goes back to that it's still good.
Definitely will die. I just don't see how instances will be supported financially. The fediverse is nice but at the end of the day, the instances are running somewhere and there are bills to pay.
I almost hope it "fails" to replace reddit, since reddit was/is crap. I'd perfer if lemmy remained relatively small, without the toxic userbase and spammy content of reddit.
