What the title says. I think there is still a long way for that to happen but i’ve been hopeful. What do you think?
It’s possible. I think the biggest obstacle is that the corporations feeding on people’s data are not going to just stand by while it happens.
Another big obstacle is the general UX of these platforms. Major companies have teams of user experience analysis and researchers that, while not always “winning” as compared to product or business driven decisions, absolutely have a (generally positive) impact on the product. Onboarding, retention, etc.
The fediverse has all the standard frictions of most OSS, like talking about itself, it’s technology, etc when the fact is 99% of users dgaf.
I might go so far as to argue the perceived complexity is a bigger barrier than the risk of sabotage from other businesses. I am optimistic the growing list of third party apps will help solve some of these issues, as long as they take things like the sign up process and server selection into their scope.
I don’t think UX will be that big of a problem, in the past the unofficial reddit apps were all better than the official one. Major companies design by committee and the UX is meant too maximize profit and engagement statistics for advertising, rather than be “good”. A lot of open source UIs are better than their paid counterparts. I think PopOS is far nicer than windows 11.
Nah, most open source UIs are really pretty bad. Most devs are horrendous designers.
Your comment about profitability is true when it comes to social media companies specifically but definitely not true for the industry as a whole. UX is a huge selling point for enterprise software and the goal there isn’t to drive clicks or views, because that’s not how those companies make money.
UX won’t be a problem as long as the maintainers are open to feedback and not stubborn about their current approach. And even if they are, an alternate front end could be introduced separate from the default one.
That and the servers are under such stress that it makes for a stuttery beginning for any new usrrs. Even just trying to upvote you and comment was a process. First this page wouldn’t load properly, then then the upvote didn’t show, then the screen jumped around when I tried to reply.
This site and any other will only replace Reddit etc if it’s got people. It only gets people if new users can use the platform. We’re not quite there yet. The people here now are willing to put up with growing pains but if it doesn’t improve soon people will move on
The problem is that everyone has consolidated on one gargantuan server. The whole point of the fediverse is to spread out so no one server is carrying the entire load. I’m currently using lemm.ee and have experienced none of the issues being discussed here.
But yes, I agree that it could be a potential turn off for newcomers.
At the time of this writing, I have accounts on two servers. One on the big server, and one on a tiny server.
Obviously, the gargantuan server’s biggest issue is performance. That will probably improve with time, but with its size comes some noticeable benefits, which I will touch on shortly.
The tiny server, which I actually joined first, is blazing fast, but I’ve run into constant issues trying to find communities and posts that the bigger server can find no problem. Initiating a federation request is not intuitive at all, and your average user is going to wonder why the hell so much stuff isn’t showing up when they click All on a smaller server.
I tried manually copying my subscription list from the gargantuan server to the tiny one. It was quite a chore, even though it got better in 0.18. Most of the communities returned a “not found” error. Having to retry a search several times or manually input the URL and reload the page several times until the server can find the community on the remote server is not something the average user is going to want to deal with, so they’ll end up on the huge servers that already know about the communities on the other large servers, if they don’t give up.
Hopefully this gets better, but that’s my best guess as to why everybody ended up on the gargantuan servers.
Spreading out would help the performance of the servers but would still expose inefficiencies in the backend systems that they use to talk to each other. The page might load, but the content will be all kinds of fucked.
It’s a huge turn off. And federation itself adds to the problem when the servers don’t match up properly.
Create an account off of lemmy.world and see if you have the same issues. A smaller instance can handle things easier. It have 2 but use the one that was most up-to-date and responsive.
See that’s part of the problem. You shouldnt need to have to create a bunch of accounts just to use a site. People aren’t going to stick around to find time their social media. They want it to just work.
I don’t disagree that it’s a weakness. But that just is how it is for now. I’d guess that it will settle down to a few dozen “strong” instances that are all federated together, with hundreds more smaller instances available, but right now there are like 5 super-packed instances (lemmy.world, sh.itjust.works, kbin.social, etc) which are getting killed with a double-whammy: all the users and all the communities are on them.
We’re still very early on. It’s not going to be a digg to Reddit style thing. But Reddit will keep making bad decisions and people will trickle over here over time and with each influx, things will have improved. I’ve been here a couple weeks and it seems like every day it gets better.
Also, the technical barriers aren’t as scary to people make it out to be. Yeah we won’t get all the boomers, which is very sad. But I’ve got some very tech illiterate friends who have started using memmy with no problems.
And do we even want to get as big as Reddit? Reddit was great 15 years ago. Then teenagers got smart phones and the olds spread out past Facebook and it’s been on decline ever since. I’d be perfectly happy if it got to like 20% the size of Reddit. Maybe not even that big.
Yeah we won’t get all the boomers, which is very sad.
I hope boomer is a state of mind, because otherwise you might be disappointed to learn how old some of us are.
I fundamentally disagree with the idea we will see a continuous trickle of users here as reddit makes more bad decisions. It will be waves, not a constant trickle. And each decision after the API changes will be incrementally smaller, driving fewer users away.
Right now we will also have a retention problem. People came here as an alternative to reddit, a d if the site is too slow, too hard to use because it is slow, then they won’t stay. Theyll fall back into old habits and go back to reddit, because it’s easier and familiar.
Edit: case and point: I’m using Jerboa. I just posted this comment, but when I did it took about 30 seconds, then I got a network error, and it didn’t seem to post but it had, in fact, posted. This is pretty normal on this app right now. I understand stuff like this will get ironed out, but for new users who aren’t fully committed it’s a BIG turnoff.
I’ve only been on lemmy.one and I’m reading through this thread thinking what technical problems? Seriously people need to try a different instance because apparently they run much better.
As long as people don’t sign up to lemmy.world for a while we should be fine
I’m testing out Mlem on iOS and so far it is a much cleaner experience than even the desktop version of Lemmy’s webapp. Lots of nice QoL features.
Yeah, the apps have been spotty for me, but at least the layout is cleaner.
Not a good sign when you need an app to properly use your website though.
The mobile site for Lemmy is at least usable, without a huge banner telling you to download the app. That’s more than I can say for Reddit.
We’ve been using reddit for years…
And? I don’t remember Reddit being difficult to use when I signed up a decade ago
I imagine reddit felt little different than this at launch in 2005. New services are never going to be perfect from the start and it’s obvious there is a community of devoted devs working on this project.
Why are you even here?
Decentralized nature of Lemmy is also going to be confusing for the average Joe. When they to go to web site of Lemmy and see a list of instances to choose from, with communities spread all over them they are just going to nope out.
yeah, lemmy’s current web app is very much in the “made for nerds by nerds” category as far as i see. lots of cool tools to express yourself and not many useless limitations, but on the other hand it’s kinda confusing if you’re not that techy. it’s absolutely learnable but it would do very poorly on a hallway usability test.
and it’s understandable why that is so, lemmy itself is being developed by two people who have their hands full putting out a thousand other fires, as well as sorting through the community’s contributions. but there’s still a lot that will have to improve in the future – although I’m completely sure that when it does, it will be way better than what a corporate alternative would be like. those tend to do well with attracting new users but they also tend to be out of touch and suffer from stupid one-off decisions by middle managers trying to get promoted.
If only those expert researchers were more focused on a great user experience instead of dark patterns to sell more ad eyeballs. There’s definitely good expertise to crowdsource, give it time.
Even a healthy competitor, niche, or mainstream would be so nice. Lemmy already hits with some solid weight imo.
And do what? Make a better product? The beauty of Capitalism is that consumers really are the final say on whether your product succeeds. You can make an app with as many addictive hooks as possible, but that doesn’t make those users permanent. And any sabbotage by Reddit will only dig in our heels at this point.
If the fediverse starts gaining traction, you can bet the mega-corps will use every dirty trick they have to co-opt it or, if that fails, undermine it.
Threads is already expected to be that answer. Mindless instagram folks won’t have a clue.
Threads is only slealing twitter’s user space, which i can totally get behind. Fuck elon musk. Even if it benefits the lizardman.
Yeah I mean I HATE Facebook…. But I hate what musk did to Twitter and crypto more…
I hear what you’re saying, but Lemmy was created to oppose the capitalist exploitation cycle. With Lemmy, we aren’t consumers or a product. Lemmy is actually firmly rooted in anti-capitalism and arose because capitalism destroys choice.
Capitalism isn’t necessary for innovation. It is just the private ownership of things. Spez didn’t make Reddit great, for example. Other people did. Spez is just a do-nothing owner who is now the mouth piece for bigger do-nothing owners looking to wring out maximum profit from unpaid laborers.
I’d argue that capitalism stifles innovation, which is why everyone agrees that you need competition. A market economy. And broad anti-trust regulations, since capitalism is inherently authoritarian since it is a top-down hierarchical structure. A free-ish market is what allowed us to innovate so quickly.
But Lemmy is outside of that since it isn’t driven by profit.
People use “capitalism” in different ways. The person you responded to probably meant it as “free marked system”, which Lemmy absolutely fits into. Often “capitalism” is used to mean “profit seeking system”, which Lemmy doesn’t fit into.
Both of these uses are common.
Being on the internet used to be not cool.
Email and www. … .com was as foreign to the mainstream as the Fediverse is to the mainstream today.
The nerds build cool shit, the corporations chase the hot new thing to milk every last dollar out of the mainstream who want the cool new toys, and the mainstream inevitably ruins the cool new toy because they don’t understand how or why it was made in the first place.
This is the way of human nature. It has played out on the internet since the start (and probably well before that) and it will probably play out again on the fefiverse (just look at Meta).
Absolutely not in their current formats.
Sign up needs to be simplified enough that your gran could do it and we need way more professional UIs. After those two things, it could happen.
Agreed. Not sure if there is a fair and easy way for the whole “instance” user distribution but the current set up isn’t straight forward. Not to say it was difficult but my experience with it was an immediate thought of this barrier of entry is too steep. It’s unlike what most anyone has likely ever encountered. (at least knowingly.)
Like mapping a network drive. Is it an actually difficult task? No. Can any significant portion of the general population identify what I just stated? Probably no. Sure a small percent may go on to Google that and figure it out. But in general I find it bad practice to ask that of them.
Would it be reasonable if some algorithm handled that aspect and just default assigned people based on location, maybe a couple quick questions of their interests, and the hosts willing capacity increase rate? Plus some other factors I didn’t think of. In some text could also say you can choose from a list of instances if you so choose or just leave it as is.
It should automatically assign by default, but have an “advanced sign-up options” button that you can use if wanted.
Yes. Sign up needs to be like users are accustomed to. but i think the ui is fine.
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As long as you all stay here, I’m happy.
I don’t think you need to have the largest following to have great value, even lemmy as it is right now feels great. I’ll actually want to dive into comment sections compared to the endless scrolling on reddit.
As long as there’s enough people using a platform for a variety of ideas and experience in topics, I think that’s good enough for me.
Personally, I don’t even want Lemmy/kbin to become Reddit 2.0.
Reddit from 10 years ago is the goal for me. Reddit has become far, far too bloated for its own good, and that line was crossed a long time ago IMO. Let’s just enjoy what we have. Let all the normies stay on Reddit, the people I wanna vibe with are here already.
The problem is that nitch communities won’t get populated unless a lot of people join. The league of legends sub is the largest video game sub on Reddit, and here it’s barely active at all.
I want it to be Reddit 2.0 in the sense that I can find active communities for specific or niche interests. Before July 1, the smallest subs that I participated in to have similar communities here were ones that had ~400k subscribers on Reddit.
The value of Reddit was never in the 1M+ communities, any content there was usually present elsewhere, and the discussions rapidly became dumpster fires. It was in the smaller dedicated subs for topics that might not have another human-centric discussion forum.
As a normie, I’d still like to vibe with you.
I agree. A vast majority of the userbase don’t mind the countless ads on Reddit or Twitter, on even FB. I think people are leaving FB because it’s not cool anymore, not because the UE has gotten worse.
I’m just glad that there now are smaller, more tailored for my preferences alternatives like Lemmy
I think you meant
UXasUser eXperience.
Big true! I’m actually spending most of my time on Lemmy down in the comment section 😁
Yes I think about Hacker News, which isn’t technically sophisticated nor does it have a massive userbase (a little less than 1 million registered accounts).
It manages to have a steady stream of content and an active commenting base
A big part of it is probably having full time paid moderators to manage their community well.
Lemmy has a long way to go in terms of user experience before it can effectively compete with Reddit. The majority of new accounts in the last weeks have been spite users. That is, they’re here not because they love Lemmy - but because they hate Reddit.
That’s not a bad thing, per say. It doesn’t matter how people get here. It’s more important that they have a good reason to stay.
And the average user doesn’t care if something is federated or centralized. They just want a product that works and is simple to grasp. In my opinion, app developers are going to be the gamechanger Lemmy needs Stuff like Memmy (on the iOS app store today!), Mlem, Liftoff, Thunder are pretty much better than the official Reddit app. And that’s how most people consume content these days. When there’s no enshitification ads or microtransactions - there’s clearly going to be a winning experience.
It’ll take time, but as more Federation communities build - the less Reddit is necessary. As well, it usually takes a long time before people start catching on that the tools they once loved have turned to into bots and spam.
Mastodon is in it’s 7th year, and has like 8 million active users. Twitter had 200 million users by it’s 7th year. On one hand, Mastodon is the biggest Federation app. On the other, Twitter was 25x as large. Of course, Twitter is no longer the relevant “town hall” it once was - and is hemorrhaging users and respect. So who knows. It only takes a few celebrity endorsements to get countless folks switching. Who knows
I sure as hell hope not.
To me, that’s like looking around a great little cafe with terrific food and saying, “Do you think this could ever become McDonalds?”
Why would I want that?
It doesn’t need to become mainstream. I’ll be happy to be a part of a smaller but vibrant engaged community. I hope there will be a phone app some day through
Why do they need to be replaced? Just use lemmy/mastodon and forget Reddit even exists. Not sure why people are so hung up on “replacement” when all you need to worry about is enjoying the content and interacting. Fuck Reddit and twitter, comparison is the thief of joy.
I think it remains to be seen. The rapid growth of .world has been the first real production test of how the platform handles more users and content. Amazing work by the team, but there are a lot of rough edges and it is a new platform with a lot of unknowns.
The things that spring to mind for me are:
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Sign up needs to be streamlined and made more simple, and find a way to not overload individual servers without just randomly assigning people to instances.
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Live defects, bugs and things feeling rough around the edges.
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Back-end build and scaling.
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Duplicate communities across instances.
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Account migration between instances.
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Data retention past x period - how will various instances handle this with a large number of users.
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GDPR and data request compliance from individuals, governments, etc.
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Funding the costs and resources associated with rapid, large growth. How do people know what their money is going to fund? I think there needs to be real transparency, public roadmaps and backlogs and understand how / if admins are accountable.
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How the platform and users will respond to large corporations or even individual admins on instances adding adverts, using / selling user data in ways the userbase do not expect.
The biggest issue would be data retention. Reddit serves as a real world database that stores all the historical content and search engines like google make it searchable.
We’re talking about petabytes, and lemmy hardly has a few gigabytes.
Who is going to store all this data, even in a distributed environment, the bigger instances would have to store a few hundred terrabytes (per year).
Text is very light and compresses very well. While instances may risk having scaling issues with photo and video, text should be very easy to archive forever.
Media is only stored by the instance of the user that’s uploading it, if you want to upload tons of data you’re going to end up having to self-host.
…and it’s not like links don’t break on reddit all the time. Don’t worry about archiving that’s what archive.org is for.
On the other hand, do we really need to store it? Sure some posts will remain relevant, but many and even most posts on reddit, forums etc are outdated. Maybe communities and mods should decide what posts are relevant and make them permanent, where the rest just get erased after a set period of time that the community sets.
If stuff is deleted it can end up as a DenverCoder9 suituation where you search the tntire internet to find a solution to yer specific problem, find someone who had iot a decade ago, solved it and either never posted it or it was wiped.
I specifically use Reddit for the data retention and ease of finding “old” information, unlike basically other social media which scrubs it from any search even seconds after you looked at it (even if they still store the data)
Wouldn’t that take even more resources?
Personally I think its ok for instances to delete older posts to save space provided that there are means to archive threads that users find valuable. For fediverse to thrive it should be as easy as possible for people to setup and manage instances without having to think about the storage space too much.
Archival of historical content is something that I feel should be handled separately.
Duplicate Communities are wanted.
That’s really interesting, what are the benefits to duplicate communities beyond one server going offline or not retaining data? Is it better to have a lot of smaller communities with duplicate posts in them and having a quite splintered user base, or having everyone in one place but have the risk of having all the eggs in one basket!
The resiliance to opresion. Because federation it is wanted to have smaller communities. As everything is splintered into small communities. And smaller communities are better managable.
For sure! It will be interesting to see how it all works out as Lemmy hopefully grows and scales
Yeah we will see :)
There are still a bunch of UI bugs that remain to be solved. That one is also a big hurdle to becoming mainstream
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fuck dude I hope not. The best part of Lemmy to me is the fact that it’s not as big as the others, and what Lemmy gives me is that same feeling of freedom websites in the 2000s and early 2010s felt like they had.
I think anyone who was around, and online, before reddit/twitter/Facebook became the consolidated social media behemoths that they are, are willing to learn something new. The before-times were replete with smaller communities where your internet handle was the only real source of continuity (and even then, only if you wanted it to be).
But those whose ONLY experience of online discourse is the big 3? It’s a lot to adjust to. I don’t know if this is what will hit critical mass, but then, maybe that’s setting the wrong goal to begin with. Can the communities connected here be self-sustaining for a time, regardless? Definitely.
Not everyone who left Digg went to reddit, and not everyone who left Myspace went to Facebook. “Replacing” reddit should never be the goal, it should be “be better than reddit”.
If this is ever to go mainstream, what we should be concerned about is making good, high quality original content. If people see us having fun and being nice here, they’ll want to join in too.
+1 for doing your part to build a nice community!
Quick plug for my own communities:
- [email protected] for my take on ELI5
- [email protected] for my take on nosleep
now why did you pop off with nowlemmyexplain. the creativity jumped out with the name
Great point about the high-quality original content. I remember before Reddit was popular, that’s where much of the original content was generated, and it would eventually be reposted on Digg. Reddit had the reputation of being tomorrow’s Digg homepage today.
Likewise, I think the way we know we’ve made it is when the reddit reposts here stop, and Lemmy posts are reposted on reddit instead.
Right, I don’t want forwards from Reddit, I want our own ecosystem.
Maybe, but I wish it would be like the Internet pre-2000. That is, it’s reserved for mainly nerds our curious people/ early adopters. I really dislike the modern state of Internet and how bloated it is, and why the heck do I need 16gb of ram just to browse Web pages when they don’t do anything more for me than 20 years ago.
Back to the original question, it will grow for sure, but some issues: when I google “lemmy” it brings up the musician in the top posts. Also (and I don’t understand how this platform works yet) won’t bandwidth be an issue if many people visit. How does that work? Especially if it starts hosting images. I read that it’s funded by donations. I know Wikipedia functions just fine on that model but that’s an outlier when you look at the net.
