Why a mass exodus from Reddit won't be so good for Lemmy
Hello! A lot of people are discussing the recent Reddit changes (I'm also a Reddit refugee), but I think there are some reasons why a mass exodus from Reddit won't be good for Lemmy:
servers would crash
The reddit "hivemind" would move to Lemmy
The shitty jokes would continue here
just check r/redditmoment. Do you want that to become c/lemmymoment?
right now the community here is big enough that there are enough posts to keep us entertained, but small enough to get to interact multiple times with the same people and not get drowned in a sea of posts/comments
The Lemmy community rn is also formed of at least mildly tech-savvy people (that could figure out the whole instances thing), that isn't the case for Reddit
As some people mentioned, many people will just forget what happened after the blackout (unless it becomes permanent), so a mass exodus also seems unlikely.
What do you think about this?
EDIT: I'm not talking about denying every Reddit application, I just hope the annoying redditors go back into their hole, just like @JTurtle said.
Communities naturally change as they grow. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can remember being able to read every single Tweet as the scrolled by on the Twitter homepage, before it became necessary to pick and choose who to follow. Or who watched popular BBS boards fission as the load got too high.
The challenge is to have healthy growth. Thoughtful moderation goes a long way (unless you're looking for a free-for-all environment, which some people are). Welcoming and engaging people who you want to encourage to set the tone helps too. I suspect the fact that in the Fediverse you can "vote with your feet" and switch servers without losing access to previous discussions may also help to limit the spread of toxicity.
So one of the defenses we have against this is the federated nature of lemmy. It's not "Lemmy" that you join. It's an instance run by some people you hopefully have found to align with your values. That instance does not need to grow large on its own for the whole network to be strong and you can maintain moderation in the instance by limiting then number of members joining. This doesn't weaken Lemmy, there are other instances that denied applicants can go to and they can all interact. Think of it like a bus service where if one bus is too full, you can just catch the next one. Except the next bus is already there waiting for you. It may just be enough of a disruption to stop a hivemind from moving in and taking over entirely, especially if instances are founded on a strong sense of culture. Beehaw certainly has its own culture compared to other instances and that's a great thing to hold on to when lot's of people show up and want things to work here exactly how they worked elsewhere.
it is happening. I’m a 12 year veteran of reddit who only stuck to hobby and niche subreddits. I have been disenfranchised by what reddit has become and the api mess has only expedited an eventual departure.
beehaw and lemmy as a whole vía the beta iOS app has
given me a lot of comfort as I look forward to finding new places to learn, contribute, and connect on the internet.
I think it will be very similar to the Mastodon exodus.
There's going to be a huge spike (prepare your servers, folks) but it will die down steadily. You'll see a lot of obnoxious r/redditmoment types for a while but eventually they'll go crawling back to their hole (not enough easy clout to gain here), and at the end of it all we'll just have more cool people.
So, bumpy ride ahead but a net positive at the end. but i might just be saying that bc im part of the migration, i dont know lemmy culture too well
I remember some years back on Reddit there a change to what the default subs were. Suddenly my reddit frontpage was full of /r/aww and a lot of incredibly low effort content. From then on it was necessary to show only subs I subscribe to. I like memes as much as the next person, but in moderation.
I'm not worried and don't see a big problem if there are some subreddits/communities with memes and low effort content.
In the discussion of size. I subbed to the classicalmusic sub. Right now there is an equivalent in the fediverse I think but it's quite dead. Just having one community for all types of music isn't really appealing. I don't want to go through 1000s of popmusic post to find two about classical.
This example of mine with classicalmusic transfers well to other topic. I started using a distro of Linux on my computer and want to connect with others also using Linux. For all these niche interest size is important.
Then as for joining. I won't say it's complicated to sign up, but there is an extra hurdle in a way with how it's a lot to take in about how the fediverse is working. Many people will join, but it requires slightly more effort still than many other social places around the internet.
I’m here mostly due to my love of the Apollo app. I started on Reddit nearly 15 years ago after bailing on Digg. My usage of Reddit has 100% moved to mobile for various reasons. So after my personal exodus, I find myself a Mlem user enjoying it 100%. I don’t think the mass exodus from Reddit will change a ton on their end and this will probably just be a blip on the radar. But it might be just enough of a blip to push Lemmy and apps like Mlem to start to get some real traction. I don’t want Lemmy to become 100% like Reddit and i’m excited to see where this goes.
I’m a sense I promoted that idea because I believe that communication should be open and free. Frankly, I do agree with you that keeping the community to mildly tech savvy folks is quite nice indeed.
I welcome and look forward to reading everyone’s thoughts on the issue. I made some large posts because I wanted new folks to see they could come here - not that they will stick around ultimately.
Sure, many Reddit users will pile onto to our wonderful little place probably overloading it.
Over time I think, traffic and user activity will spread out across the lemmyverse which I believe will be a net-positive. Ideally, low-effort memes and reposts will be kept in separate communities from thoughtful discussion.