I guess it’s self explanatory but I keep seeing all this stuff about how everyone is moving from Reddit to lemmy and I’m wondering if anyone knows if that’s really what’s happening. If you have numbers that’s even better.
Thanks!
Not a mass exodus. Call it a brain drain, if you will. The churn includes those who posted or were moderators. Since those who stayed are directly or indirectly supporting practices that most of us find unacceptable, Reddit will probably forever have that sour taste. It will gradually turn into a pale reminder of what it once was, and it will lose its spark. The sheer volume, quality, and length of posts in the Fediverse is indicative of new user profiles. I am so glad I took the plunge!
It’s hard to get an exact number but you can extrapolate based on the growth of Lemmy in the last few weeks. While not record-breaking, it is quite an impressive growth.
Also note that not everyone who left Reddit came to Lemmy. There is also Kbin, Tildes and alternative. Some never really left at all.
I think the real damage done to Reddit (ultimately by themselves) is showing the world that there are real alternatives (even if a bit rough around the edges). They are materializing and growing as threats and if Reddit doesn’t step up their game, they could be in some real trouble.
The other possibility is that some other company might step up and build a Reddit clone, much like what Meta’s Threads is to Twitter, once they see that there is blood in the water and a potential to displace Reddit as the “frontpage of the Internet”. Heck, even Threads is built on the Fediverse, maybe a bigcorp-backed Reddit clone might be as well.
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frontpage of the Internet
More like the backpage of the Internet.
We’re in a bit of a glass house here on that front. The pornsick losers have definitely made themselves at home here.
For you and for me maybe. For many others, they are still happily scrolling away on the official app.
They don’t even call themselves that anymore…
From Reddit’s PoV I don’t think that there is a mass emigration; it’s just that the most engaged sectors of the community left, so the 99% left don’t give a damn about it. Over time I predict that it’ll be a slow drain, not a mass exodus.
However from Lemmy/Kbin’s PoV there is a mass immigration. And the users are disproportionally active; for example a comm with 3k subscribers getting 1k upvotes in a post, stuff like this.
It’s a strategy straight out of MBA textbooks: Once you’re above a certain size and have a large “common consumer” base, you kick out everyone who would complain about shitty practices and exploitative behaviour. Then you squeeze out all the money you can over a year or three before the rest realize and leave.
It’s fast ROI at the cost of customer retention and long term profits. And investors literally don’t care if the company goes bankrupt as long as they get that money. Because they’ll just move on to the next company and do the same thing all over.
I am seeing precisely this in my workplace. A global company, bought by an investment fund for billions.
The fund cuts away anything that does not directly generate revenue, like product development, maintenance, support. So many people have been let go, the few remaining are unable to keep the ship afloat.
Fund doesn’t care because the numbers are amazing (income vs expenses) and they just want to sell before it sinks.
No care for the livelihood of thousands of employees, or the many very large customers. They will practically die, and that’s okay to the ones in charge.
Oh interesting, yeah. That makes sense. Thanks!
I don’t care I like it here, fuck that place
I deleted 14 years of posts and 2 weeks later they banned me for a non-existent TOS violation weeks after the post in question was overwritten with a single letter then deleted.
So, ya, People are going to be looking for a replacement. reddit can go suck a failed ipo.
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I think that’s really all we can ask for. I already miss some of the subs back on reddit but I’m sure they’ll start showing up here eventually
Some useful communities:
Fix problems and errors !techsupport@lemmy.world
Find the best products by Lemmy users reviews !recommendations@lemmy.world
Find the best software options !softwareoptions@lemmy.world
And more (if you know more I will edit to add them)
Would you happen to know of a good step-by-step guide on how to create a new community?
There’s a niche sub on Reddit I have not seen yet here and I would not mind having a go at recreating it, I’m just having a hard time figuring out what the steps are because the information is in different places. So if anyone can point me in the right direction I’d truly appreciate it.
Are you on phone or PC, web or app?
Web on PC, plain browser interface, sorry I didn’t state that upfront. And thank you. :)
There is a New Community button in the header
I don’t know how I missed that. Many thanks. :D
My opinion is that if you give a shit about how and where you spend your time, you will not support a platform run by and inhabited by dickheads.
Vote with your feet, or thumbs in this case.
When the app I used to access Reddit, Joey for Reddit, went down yesterday I moved to Lemmy. They were working with Reddit to setup paid API access and Reddit shutdown their access mid negotiation. I already had a Lemmy account but didn’t use it til now. I know a lot of other Joey users that did the same.
So Joey was willing to pay for API access and Reddit still shut them down?
I don’t think it’s a mass exodus. However in situations like these I think it’s important to look at the rate of change. r*ddit is steadily getting worse, and Lemmy is steadily getting better. I don’t think there will be an immediate sea change, but hopefully there will be fits and starts in the right direction.
No and no, it’s just hype IMO. But the trickle of new users seems sufficient to make Lemmy a more interesting place to be and a more viable platform long term. That’s already quite good if you ask me.
Mass exodus?
Nope.
Howevir, Lemmy has reached the critical mass of users and is usable. In parallel some active users left reddit, and many sub reddits relies on a handful of active users who post and comment, even one of them leaving here is impacting the life of these subs
I mostly moved to Lemmy. I still browse reddit, but I stay logged out and no longer contribute and my old account was on the top 1% for comment karma. I’ll bring that energy to lemmy.
It’s a small but very specific, active minority of the total reddit pie. This is why Reddit won’t go away. They have enough of a core audience that doesn’t care about how bad the official app or web page may be. It’s just good enough for them, which is all they need to scratch their reddit itch.
Seeing growth across a few Lemmy instances over the past few weeks has been fun.
They basically trimmed the fat. Those who they weren’t monetizing are no longer using as many resources for free. They force people to use their system so they can show them ads.
What’s also fun is the few times I’ve been back to reddit to look at something. Each time I ended up seeing people in the comments with just terrible attitudes. And I thought to myself, “I’m weirdly glad reddit is still around because it gives people like you a place to congregate that I can avoid.”
You have put into words the exact feeling I have been getting while looking at anything on Reddit recently.
Maybe the shift I’m seeing is purely confirmation bias, but it feels like the same thing I’ve seen with Twitter, but to a lesser degree so far
I’ve noticed reddit in general become more and more negative for years now. The majority of comments are complaining or taking a piss on something.
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There clearly is not. Even people on here, who say they “quit” Reddit, often go on to say “I only go on it now for this one subreddit” or “I only go on it to check news” etc. Spez bet that people would either not care about him shitting all over the Reddit community for profit, or be too addicted to Reddit to actually do anything about it. And he was right.
These predictions that Reddit will collapse because the “power users” have left are ridiculous. It’s not difficult to find recycled trash on the internet to shitpost on Reddit. Hell, bots can do it, and have been. People just want garbage to mindlessly scroll through and leave their dumb comments on (“user name checks out, har har”).
I will personally never use Reddit as long as it’s run my Spez (or any other equivalent asshole), but it’s quite clear that they’ve survived this API debacle just fine.
True. But, the power users leaving will likely have a long term impact.
The thing that set Reddit apart from all the other spaces to settle down on the internet was that Reddit’s users made it work, not Reddit.
They had their faults; moderation wasn’t perfect. But, it was good in the places it needed to be. Reddit was also very good at attracting “experts” in niche topics. You could reliably trust askscience, askhistorians, whatisthisbug, etc.
Reddit has plenty of memes, porn and funny cats to attract the masses, but it was the power users that made Reddit what it was.
On top of that, Reddit was so customizable because of all the 3rd party apps that had polish. Apollo, BaconReader, etc., no ads and lots of options to choose from to suit your needs.
Good points, I guess time will tell if enough people with enough significance left (or will leave). I just don’t think so, unfortunately. But hopefully.
Cutting back your engagement from 30h a week to 30m is a huge shot against Reddit tho.
I kept my account alive but now only follow a handful of subs and am finding alternatives weekly. Discord. Lemmy.
This all results in a huge loss for Reddit because no one’s there for the ads or promoted posts. And that’s all they’ll have left after a while. And that’s not enough to attract a real base. Reddit won’t die overnight but look at what one fatal move did to Tumblr (when they banned porn). It tanked the site so hard that it’s losing money daily now. A stark contrast from when it sold for billions.
Corporations are far too flippant in thinking they are indestructible. And how they handled the API changes tells you that, like Tumblr, they made a serious mistake.
It’s the same with Facebook. People are so addicted to it that no matter how badly they are treated they just can’t quit. No matter the evidence repeatedly presented with just how evil FB is, I have still never convinced a family member to get off it. At this point I just will have to be satisfied with them never referencing me or having any pictures of me on it. Reddit is the same, but not as extreme.
It’s the same with Facebook. People are so addicted to it that no matter how badly they are treated they just can’t quit.
Facebook is a very different beast. It exists and thrives because it convinced people to engage personally. It’s difficult to leave Facebook because family and friends are there. And Facebook also bought a lot of the competition and branched out: Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. It also has value to businesses, it has a market place, it truly is a monster.
Reddit has nothing. It doesn’t know its users and most of them are really careful to keep anonymous. It has shared interests communities, but not friendships/personal relationships. It’s really easy to quit Reddit if one decides to. It does not affect daily life.
Mass exodus maybe in terms of power users. The average Reddit user used the official client before the api restrictions. My guess is that many people who posted good stuff ditched Reddit.
Oh got it. So it’ll be interesting to see how Reddit does without those people, whether others will step up or whether it’ll just lose all that content.
No, they won’t loose all content. I think the quality will just get worse and worse depending on what you view as quality. For the average social media user it probably will be good enough, or it will develop into reposts from other mainstream platforms.
