I hate to sound negative, but right now growth in the fediverse (especially Reddit clones like Kbin and Lemmy) are being driven by people who no longer want to use Reddit. But over the past few weeks, most discussions are still circle-jerking about how bad Reddit is and how glad people are to be on Lemmy. You can only beat a horse for so long before you need other content posted on here to keep most people engaged.
Normies are confused by Mastodon and how it works. Tried suggesting it as an alternative on /r/worldnews and most people just said that it was too confusing; one guy said that he couldn’t login but turns out he forgot which instance he had signed up for originally.
Yeah but normies are what make platforms thrive. I fear Lemmy may just become an anti-Reddit circlejerk but then die out due to lack of content.
FYI, as great as Mastodon and the fediverse are, there are issues that prevent their mainstream adoption:
https://blog.bloonface.com/2023/06/12/why-did-the-twittermigration-fail/
People should develop a federated video hosting service. It will be expensive but I know the community can do it.
That’s fair. Everyone has a different way of doing things.
From your post, I don’t think you were really into internet forums. I was a part of several dozens forums, with tons of overlapping and also different discussions. I was sad when many of them slowly died as Reddit dominated niche communities. The current expression of the community-based fediverse such as Lemmy and Kbin are a return to form that I deeply missed. In the old days you could have an art subforum and the vibe of each art subforum was totally different, but shared the general themes of certain styles of art.
I was very much into Internet forums as a child and posted on quite a few. But I didn’t go on any of the general discussion boards, I focused those on specific topics or niches. That is what’s missing with the fediverse today. Everyone is trying to provide a Reddit alternative right now but forget what made Internet forums of old great - their singular focus on a particular topic, community, or subject.
No, this is worse than the old days. Back in the old days, forums were centered around specific groups and interests. All of the Reddit replacements are trying to replicate Reddit but without what makes Reddit actually the great: the mountain of archived content from over the years.
Instead of going back to the old days, what we got is a bunch of general discussion Internet forums.
There’s an added cog in the machine here. Every time someone tries (and succeeds) in explaining the issues, the astroturfing (or just regular bootlicking) begins and suddenly there’s seeds of doubt.
I am seeing many users (especially those who haven’t been around for as long) asking people what the big deal is and why their favorite subreddits are down. Half of the people trying to respond aren’t giving these people satisfactory and succinct answers. The protest is breaking down as soon as it began.
It was business as usual on some of the subreddits I post on a lot (e.g., /r/credibledefense, /r/historywhatif). Those never shut down. But other ones where they re-opened, there’s a bit of debate going on about whether or not to stay shut down or not. At least on the subs I visit and post on, most people are in favor of keeping the subs open.
I think the real issue is that the protest coordinators were not able to succinctly explain why they had to protest to begin with. Charging third party app developers for API access is an esoteric topic. Most people don’t even know what an API is. Most people don’t use third party apps. Most people also don’t care.
IDK I also see plenty of posts supporting keeping subs closed too. I doubt a lot of people have left the site for good. But those voices are generally outnumbered by people who don’t understand what’s going on or don’t care about the protest.
Don’t get me wrong… Lemmy is fine, but I am finding that most of the active posts here are about the protest on Reddit… plus a few discussions on current news and gaming… but little else. I am still spending most of my time on Reddit.
On many subreddits that have polls, it seems like a majority favor keeping their subs open. It seems like the userbase is generally ambivalent or even hostile towards the protest at large.
Lol I’m posting on both here and Reddit. I’m kind of enjoying the drama even though I don’t have a strong opinion about the API controversy personally.
Yeah I don’t have a strong opinion about whole API access controversy but it does spark a greater debate about how we let centralized services like Reddit subsume the Internet forum culture of old. Of course, Reddit in many ways is a superior product to the decentralized forums of old (you only need one account to post) but at the same time, this whole protest has proven especially damaging to people who rely heavily on Reddit as a resource for support (like the mental health subreddits, the chronic disease ones, etc.).
Agree. I don’t plan to leave Reddit but it’s good to look at the alternatives that are available out there.
Because the point of having such a huge website was always to make money. You need decentralization to remove some of that profit motive.
An indefinite shutdown would not work - the moderators of the subs who perform them will be kicked out and be replaced by people who want to keep the subs in operation. Plus, it’s a disservice to people who do use Reddit as a resource for work or otherwise. I think a 48 hour protest is reasonable, but beyond that, there’s not a whole lot you can do.
My only issue with Lemmy is that it’s not a true Reddit replacement, especially when places keep defederating from one another. Like I spend far less time here on Beehaw because it’s defederated from some of the major instances - I understand the administrators’ concerns about moderation but over time a lot of the activity will center itself around the most active instances (i.e., users may come from a diversity of instances) but only interact with content on Lemmy.world.