Lemmy world was growing at a decent pace leading up to July 1st, then had a big influx following the API deadline. However the last week in particular has seen a decline.
Engagement still appears to be the same, although a little lower than the start of the month. A few of the other instances i have been checking follow a similar pattern.
Do you think we will continue growing at a steady pace, or do we need another big trigger to get users to migrate? For Mastodon, it seems there’s a big trigger every other week to drive users away from Twitter, but with Reddit, the revolt seems to have quietened down considerably.
It does feel a little dead here. Right now it’s mostly memes, meta discussions, or Reddit hate. And the crowd is a very specific type of hyper aware internet dweller (myself included).
Reddit isn’t worth using without third party apps, and it’s the only social media I used before Lemmy, so I’m spending a lot more time off my phone nowadays. I only check the daily top on Lemmy once a day instead of compulsively every time I touch my phone. Guess that’s a good thing.
This is also partly to blame on the sorting algorithm. There is an active PR to improve this https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/pull/3378 (Relevant issue: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3622)
The sorting algorithm fixes can’t come soon enough IMO. Small subs are dead because they simply can’t show up on the front page with most of the sorting algorithms that Lemmy has. That limits how much you’ll see in your feed and also makes Reddit a better product (due to all the niche subs it has that actually show up on the front page).
I blocked the major meme subs (coms?) and my experience here has been much, much better. Free yourself of last year’s memes and explore all the interesting links getting posted
Yes, those meme communities are very active and drown other posts from other communities. Unsubscribing them drastically improve my experience. I can sort by New now and see Posts from communities I subscribed to. And unlike Reddit, new posts got pretty good engagements here, perhaps because other people browse by New too.
“very active” meaning nonstop reposts of last year’s top reddit memes by bots or humans acting like bots
I don’t want Lemmy to be reddit 2.0
It’s fine, memes also have their audience. I also blocked all of the communities, but to each their own
That’s a very good thing.
And to be honest, as selfish as this will sound, I wouldn’t want Lemmy to grow too much - unless the eternal september crowd can be contained.
I disagree. While I do like that the discussions and top level comments are not nearly as homogenized as Reddit eventually became, I’m really missing the niche communities. I wasn’t subscribed to any large subs on Reddit, so my feed was basically just a curated list of discussions for my hobbies. No memes, news, pop culture, internet drama, or politics. Right now, that’s just not possible on Lemmy due to the low population.
Give it time. Lemmy is still very fresh, but I’m confident smaller niche communities will keep popping up and it will eventually add up. Region and country locales seems to be doing well.