Lemmy total number of users last month (very close to 1.5 M users)

Insane to start the plot at 45k. The rate of decline is rather minimal

In the last 3 months it went down by about 10,000 users. Comparing with the rate of increase in total Lemmy users, active user rate should have at least been stable. I guess we will have to wait for reddit to fuck up again for another influx. And Lemmy is only getting better with time so probably on every influx more users are going to stay.
I try to get people from niche subs I follow to move to Lemmy but every time I do I get downvoted. Could be automated by reddit idk
- People generally don't like being proselytized.
  
  Right. Just make great lemmy content and screenshot it. Then when people ask for the source you provide the lemmy link
  
  Or only mention it to people actively looking for an alternative. I see that from time to time, then I point them to /r/RedditAlternatives where most of the posts are about Lemmy
- I try to get people from niche subs I follow to move to Lemmy but every time I do I get downvoted. Could be automated by reddit idk
  Have you tried opening your comments from a private window? Sometimes they get shadow removed too
The starting point is just so you can adequately see trends for both plots shown and is quite sane. I also don't know if I could call an ~5% decline and clear trend minimal either.
- If you start the plot at 0, you can distinguish between a strong trend, a weak trend and a lack of a trend. This one is terrible for gauging that.
  
  All starting at 0 would do is ensure that you have no way to accurately gauge the data points values. It would also just compress the data to an incomprehensible smudge of a line.
  
  Let's put that to a test
  
  Showing the data over an entirely different timescale than what's currently under discussion means nothing in this context to illustrate your point.
  Starting from 0 on the y axis just means you need to change the scale, which like I said makes reading any data points incomprehensible, or end up with an unnecessary amount of whitespace.
  
  If you start at 0, you see exactly what you're supposed to: there is a rather negligible trend in the given timeframe.
  
  That's the point. The number of users has very slightly declined in the past few months. Under the original plot, you have a lot of people (rightly) misinterpreting the data, and saying that a lot of users are leaving the site.
  That's why you start at 0. So that people interpret the data correctly.
  
  If you start at zero, the exact same data is shown as when there is a clearly labeled breakpoint. It contributes nothing other than obscuring the data points and scope of discussion is only for the past month. You're not making a cogent point.
  Just like I said before, a 5% decline is not an insignificant drop or "very slightly declined." Expanding the scope of the argument to show that it's actually a far steeper decline in user engagement and then arguing the opposite point is misinterpreting the data. Expanding the scope just shows that the trends are continuously showing declining user engagement with no organic growth other than Reddit fucking up.

The same plot with a more reasonable y-axis:

Active users (monthly is what you should be looking at) is very slowly declining, however we are still above the level that we were before the most recent influx.

Gotta ask why it seems to slowly decline after each influx, tho, rather than slowly rise or stay stable.
Seems at least some of these people are not liking what they find.
- Gotta ask why it seems to slowly decline after each influx, tho, rather than slowly rise or stay stable.
  Because there is a big influx of people looking for a new home and some of them don't feel this is it and move on.
  What is Interesting about the graph is that the drop-off after Rexxit was much steeper and, despite the drops, the numbers don't go below the level they were before.
- Sometimes you need u/spez to give you a couple more blows before you say "fuck it, fuck this". It happened to me.
  
  before you say "fuck this, fuck you"
  FTFY 🙂
  
  That works too.
  
  Does he give blows?
  
  He makes transactions. If passion is lacking in your life, don't get overexcited.
  
  You had to send a few bitcoin through the glory hole first, but yes
I'm probably missing something, but what are the two bumps in December and Feb from?
- December changed the way active users were counting, adding the votes on top of posts and comments
  February was LW applying that update
  
  Oh so they are not new users coming in? Well that paints a pretty different picture then
  
  Indeed, actually the change in calculation makes it hard to actually evaluate
  
  Well that was anticlimactic, but I appreciate the information
Very interesting, thanks!
They'll be back.

It used to be a much more significant decline, it seems to have leveled off mostly at 45k, so those who are left are pretty dedicated. I'm sure we'll get another influx if Reddit messes up badly again.

if when

What counts as an active user? If you are a lurker do you still count as an active user?

You count as active if you post, comment or vote.
If you vote, post or comment, you count as active user.

I've BEEN saying this for a while now. How Lemmy users need to welcome new people with interests that are different than their own. People from different generations than their own.

I've given ideas how to make starting an account easier. The concept of picking a home instance for someone who's never heard terms like "instance", "federated" or "decentralized" can be quite intimidating to start. And if you fuck up, and randomly choose the wrong instance? You have to start over. All your comment history gets left behind.

So people are going to choose the most active instance, trusting the idea that OTHER people know what they're doing.

I gave the idea that Lemmy needs to adopt standards across all instances so you can push a button and move your account. All your data would come with you.

Instead I was given a list of technical reasons why it would never work. The basis of these reasons came down to "it won't work because it would be a lot of work".

I hear a lot of people on here complain about corporate greed, and enshitification, but you gotta admit that they do get shit done.

In 2010 Steve Jobs was reviewing the new iphone prototype. Jobs said he wanted it slimmer, and wanted it airtight. The developers said it was pretty airtight, and there was no more room inside to make it slimmer.

Essentially telling Jobs that his demands were not going to be met because it would be a lot of work. So Jobs stood up, grabbed the prototype, walked to a fish tank, and dropped it in. It sank, and bubbles came out. Thus destroying it.

He said "See that? Bubbles. There's air inside, which means there's room inside. It also not airtight. Make it smaller, and make it airtight." Then he left the room. When it released to the public, the final design was smaller, and airtight.

Not saying it WON'T be hard work to make true account migration a reality, but it IS possible. The developers just figuratively need their prototype dunked in a metaphorical fish tank.

Because until this process is easier, and users are greeted with a friendlier userbase, people are just going to sign up, realize they fucked up, realize the experience isn't great, and leave. If they have access to reddit, they will leave.

It seems everytime I search for a topic all the results are from a year ago. Which suggests to me that reddit fucked up, users exploded here, gave it a chance, disliked it, and left.

Meanwhile, I point out just SOME of the glaring problems. But instead of embracing the problem and starting a think tank on how to fix it, my posts are instead turned into an echo chamber of how wrong I am. How the ideas will never work, and the problems presented persist to this day.

All because I'm thinking from the perspective of the normie 95%, and not the linux minded 5%. Which really places an artificial self installed glass ceiling on top of you.

I think your idea is a good one, and I'd like to see that happen someday.
I would point out though, that Apple was a behemoth company with large teams and massive budgets (essentially unlimited resources). Whereas Lemmy is just two guys barely scraping by a living wage from donations while slowly tackling an endless list of bug reports and feature requests.
Tossing Lemmy in the equivalent of a fish tank to motivate the devs would, most likely, just cause extreme burnout and a throwing up of hands. They are resource and time limited to a pretty extreme degree considering how popular Lemmy has become, and that should be appreciated and taken into account.
- I I wasn't talking in a place where the developers gather. I was talking here. With other users, whom I assumed would have the health of the fediverse in mind.
  The idea wasn't me stating a final idea of "do this now!". It was more of a starting point of a think tank. I was expecting to start the batton running, and pass it off to the next idea, or the continuation of the idea.
  Instead, nobody joined in. Nobody took the batton. They swatted the batton down, and collectively said "No batton! No change!"
  
  They swatted the batton down, and collectively said “No batton! No change!”
  That's not what happened. People just agreed that other features have a higher priority.
  The list of upcoming features is available here: https://join-lemmy.org/news/2024-09-11_-_New_NLnet_funding_for_Lemmy
  Among them
  Multicommunities
  Moderation tools improvement
  Private communities
  Post tags
  Ease discovery of federated communities
  Post scheduling
  Plugin system
  Etc.
  Which one of those features would you deprioritize compared to the account migration?
  
  I was expecting to start the batton running, and pass it off to the next idea, or the continuation of the idea.
  I think I see what you're saying. Lemmy is indeed a place where it's very easy to get involved, and people get involved in different ways. A lot of us just pick a community and start posting regularly. Some of us adopt dormant communities and bring them back to life. Others contribute by becoming mods or admins or setting up their own instances or debugging/coding. Even those people who were giving you reasons why the "transfer your account easily" project was difficult, they were helping you by telling you the challenges involved. Whenever a well-run project is started, you think about the hurdles, risks, and mitigations, then integrate those into your project plan.
  I encourage you to keep getting involved. The trick is to find the right level of involvement for you, then sticking with it and seeing it through.
  
  Nice comment, also cool to see you around
but you gotta admit that they do get shit done.
I opened Reddit again today to have a look at my local city sub, where I'm an (inactive) mod, the interface to moderate now offers a terrible experience. Bloated, clunky, slow. So I'm not so sure they get things done.
All your comment history gets left behind.
What's the big deal with you leaving an old account behind? Lemmy has no karma, if you keep the same username (and even more with the same picture), people are going to recognize you, you can even add links to both accounts in the bio to make sure. I'm on probably my 10th alt, people still recognize me from time to time, whatever the account.
Instead I was given a list of technical reasons why it would never work. The basis of these reasons came down to “it won’t work because it would be a lot of work”.
As @ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net pointed out, the 2 main developers have limited time and resources. What is the community supposed to do, threaten them to leave will the vast majority finds account migration a non-critical feature?
The concept of picking a home instance for someone who’s never heard terms like “instance”, “federated” or “decentralized” can be quite intimidating to start.
Here's the post I made a few days ago on /r/RedditAlternatives: https://old.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1fmuk7o/post_to_address_the_usual_criticism_about_lemmy/
Federation is confusing, people want a single website they can go to
Go to https://lemm.ee/
Have a look around, see if the content and the formatting is appealing to you, register an account if you want to be able to curate your feed further
Go to https://lemm.ee/c/newcommunities@lemmy.world to see communities (equivalent of subs) that might be interesting to you.
Use Voyager as a mobile app: https://www.lemmyapps.com/Voyager. When they ask for your "instance", use "lemm.ee"
If you want more choices for apps, have a look at https://www.lemmyapps.com/
Email has been working on a federation model for decades. People have to remember if they use Gmail or Outlook, but that's it. It's similar here.
There is a whole community here who has no idea what an instance or federation is, but they still use this community, and post 100 comments every 3 days. The platform is similar enough to Reddit for them to use. And I can tell you very confidently none of them (between 100 and 150 monthly active users) use Linux.
It seems everytime I search for a topic all the results are from a year ago.
!homeimprovement@lemmy.world
!gardening@lemmy.world
!homebrewing@sopuli.xyz
!parenting@lemmy.world
!woodworking@lemmy.ca
Of course if you ask questions on a very niche topic on a dead community nobody will answer. That's what !newcommunities@lemmy.world threads are for, to make active communities emerge.
There is even https://quiblr.com/ if people want more tailored suggestions
- The statement about comment history is inconsiderate. People absolutely care about their content. I don’t have to know nor care for their reasons why but it is important to users.
  
  Depends what they use it for
  being able to access past discussions? Still possible from an alt
  wanting to keep their persona and reputation? Use same name and add links both ways in the bios
  I can't think about anything else, but if anyone knows, feel free to jump in
I agree with your argument, but not what you've applied it to.
"Federation" isn't the main feature of Lemmy, and we don't need to focus on it. It's enough that it exists. When selling a house, would the first thing you focus on be the insurance rates if something goes wrong?
I agree with you that the onboarding process is complicated for a user that doesn't want to invest time into learning how the fediverse works.
I think that is a positive thing.
The good thing about the Fediverse is that it isn't profit driven, it isn't necessary to grow without end, and because of this it also isn't necessary to appeal to the mass of users who don't want to learn how things work here. It's a filter, weeding out the people who aren't open to new structures - that often comes paired with the inability to have open minded discussions.
I do agree with you regarding the missing transfer options, but since karma isn't a thing here, a simple import/export function for subscribed communities and blocked items should suffice, and shouldn't be too hard to implement.

Again the interesting thing is that a lot of other sites have a huge difference in numbers. But they are all saying the same thing, "Active" users are declining or getting close to equilibrium but number of users are increasing. Strange.

I personally think that piefed/mastodon/other servers federating with lemmy might be messing up the numbers in some way. Both pumping up the numbers and making others "go down" in different sites and how they are pulling the data. Like if I respond via my mastodon account, is that a "new" account? Does that make it pop up as an active user? If I dont repost it via the mastodon account for a while, will I now be an inactive account, even though I still look at lemmy with it? Im not sure.

Bit discouraging tbh

Nice post on 3D printing
You could have a promising career in finance

The decline might be because instance owners have strengthened the account creation process. I remember in "the early days" how there were an insane amount of bots, but now it seems like most of them have been banned or mitigated.