Isn’t it?
Personally, I think that Lemmy hit rock bottom relatively shortly after the main Reddit exodus in early July, and has steadily improved since. And more than anything else, I attribute that to users leaving.
The thing is that at least some significant part of the people who have left are people who couldn’t or wouldn’t appreciate the threadiverse for what it is and instead spent their time whining about the ways in which it isn’t the same as Reddit.
And honestly, good riddance to them.
There are always going to be people who can and do appreciate the threadiverse for what it is. Those who are already here will stay and at least some of those who haven’t discovered it yet will, and will move here. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I wouldn’t call what reddit is doing “thriving”. The experience of what used to make Reddit, Reddit (the deep focused communities) is already quite decayed and has been decaying for some time.
Curate your Lemmy communities better and make an effort to interact as much as possible. Lemmy always feels super dead if you don’t actively look for new communities and instances to subscribe to, because the Fediverse is inherently in a changing state of flux of where the activity is. Lemmy does not auto populate your feed with a bunch of algorithm crap, you have to MAKE it show you what you want. I’ve built up a nice list of 40+ subbed communities and see lots of content.
I have not had that experience. Reddit has more users than Lemmy, sure, but I went on Reddit literally yesterday and most of the content was trash. Lemmy has some trash, but a lot less than Reddit. A much bigger ratio of good:bad on Lemmy than Reddit has been my experience.
I find that the quality of content is totally different here. The level of engagement is similar for me. Most of my posts and comments get about the same engagement as I saw when I was on Reddit, and often a better quality. There are some niche communities that just don’t exist (yet), and there are some crowdsourced communities that don’t really transfer without huge numbers of people (things like AITA, mildly interesting, oddly satisfying, etc.). I do miss some of those aspects, but the interactions and information here are just better and less troll-y.
if you want a 1:1 replacement for reddit like .world seems like it wants to be, cloning the interface (https://old.lemmy.world) and the subreddits (e.g. this one) then of course you you will find it lacking, it’s the same thing but with only a fraction of the users. lemmy was not made for that, it was for disgruntled communists, you are on their turf
Got me! I’m a communist and very far from gruntled.
Reddit is certainly busier. But is it better? Every time I peek back into Reddit I’m overwhelmed by ads and karma-farming reposts. Was it always that bad, or did I just not notice when I was immersed in it? Either way, I’m happier here.
Well the people here are really weird, so there is that. Reddit has its issues but at least people there understand humor.
