1y ago

4 days before reddit's 3rd party app shutdown, Lemmy daily active users has skyrocketed 1600% this month

From 3000 daily active users on June 1, 2023 to 47500 on June 26, 2023.

According to Lemmy's documentation, "An active user is someone who has posted or commented on our instance or community within the last given time frame."

Sources:

EDIT: check out this link for a list of lemmy apps: https://lemmy.world/post/465785

321 comments

It is very clear that new content per day has been steadily increasing the past 14 days.
Lemmy is no longer just promising, it is already good. With signs of getting even better.
With more active users, more niche communities should soon be able to do fine too.
- I already didn't read past the first few hundred comments on reddit- Lemmy already feels almost as good to use, way more than mastodon did coming from Twitter.
  
  Mastodon is simply not as good. Lemmy achieves its objectives very cleanly and seems to leverage ActivityPub the best in the fediverse by far.
- Watching the last 3 weeks has been exciting. Dead subs springing to life & much more content. New subs every single day.

Oh so lurkers aren't counted as active? That's even promising since many users on any site never comment or post.
- Indeed! That would be me, but I would now like to contribute to the totals so I am contributing this fairly worthless comment!
  
  Another relatively useless comment! Just to contribute :)
- Okay, here's my first comment.
  
  Your comment was so insightful I just had to upvote it thus increasing 'engagement'. Am I helping?
- Here ya go.

I'm gonna comment so as to be counted as active.
- Brilliant.
- Reporting in
- Hey me too!
  
  imdoingmypart.gif
- i opened up this thread with the intention of doing just that— glad to see i’m not the only one lol
- I'm not.
- Is this were everyone is hanging out today?
  
  Maybe? We're both here so...

So active users doesn't include users who are only browsing/voting on posts? If so that's even more impressive.

Upping the active count, no lurking for me

I think it shows that the great migration from Reddit is actually happening. After the 1st of July, we can expect to see Lemmy growing even more since the changes on Reddit are gonna be in full effect.
- Agreed. I imagine the devs and admins here are looking at it as a bit of a deadline of sorts. It's going to be a big bump in traffic, best to have as much as you can in place.
  If you can have useable app out by then, you'll get a big sudden surge in interest. It's just a really nice opportunity for an aspiring dev.
- I'm really trying, the main thing I miss is the amount of content and the general navigability of reddit. Finding new subs was so easy and lemmy feels harder to just browse imo. I've moved to the lemmy RSS and deleted my reddit bookmarks to help keep me from going there out of weakness though.
  We'll see to what degree the migration stays/works. I would be very happy to see some competition in this space.
  
  https://sub.rehab/
  https://lemmyverse.net/communities
  !communitypromo@lemmy.ca
  Also native search works pretty well https://sh.itjust.works/search?q=cat&type=Communities&listingType=All&page=1&sort=TopAll
  These should help. Definitely agree about the amount of content. There's a lot of subs that haven't even migrated over yet.
  
  It is a bit harder due to fragmentation but it will get better, don't worry. Also plenty of new upcoming apps.
  
  I think it's going to be rough for sometime but the numbers seem promising thus far.
  Particularly when compared to any other reddit alterative.
- This is great and exciting news, but we do need to keep things in perspective. Jumping to almost 48,000 daily active users is great, but Reddit has about 55 million. That's essentially a rounding error as far as Reddit is concerned.
  
  People keep wishing death upon Reddit. I understand the emotion, but I wish Reddit a long life. Let it be the grease trap for doomscrollers, reposters, and political and corporate infiltration. I don’t want millions of people to join Lemmy. I want the mythical 1% active content creators to jump ship.
  
  I'm curious what the make up of people migrating are. It could be the early adopters that helped Reddit build out the platform ahead of Digg collapsing. It could also be people who were looking for an excuse to leave because they didn't really like Reddit for one reason or another. I think I fall more in the fed up with Reddit and looking for anyone/anywhere doing it better.
  
  I don't really see a problem with this. We already have enough that I can comment an engage with people. I can already ask a question and have 50 people give genuine thought out responses.
  That's enough for me.
  We're only on v0.18, some are not going to want a less refine product and that's okay. We're here building the momentum for when it's read for them.
- I won't use the official Reddit app, so my phone Reddit usage will drop to zero on July 1st.

Found my way here as part of the Grand Reddit Migration. Applying for refugee status please. (1st day on Lemmy, looks good gotta say)
- Can you hold in a poo for three days?
  
  Well that's an ask. Once a year can't be that bad. Can it?
- Your application looks good; you just need to write an ending for the following sentence: " Fuck ..."
  
  Fuck that cretinous spez and his money-grabbing lobotomy business plan.
  Double edged sword as it is, I'll probably prefer Lemmy anyway...

There will probably be another bump on July 1st, and probably more to come as Reddit makes more horrible decisions going forward.
100% honestly, I'm not married to the whole concept of the Fediverse - I think it's interesting and solves some problems plaguing modern social media, but has other issues of its own - but Lemmy has, overall, put out a good showing in the various instances' content so far. So here I am with an account and actively posting. Looking forward to continued growth!

So not even counting the lurkers
- Yeah, lurkers aren't counted. Only those who have commented or posted within a specified period.
  
  Worth noting we probably have a much higher engagement percentage than the average atm. Young community, cool new idea, gets people excited. Since the service isn't really ready for primetime yet, the only way to really pitch in and even just vent enthusiasm is to make content. For most of us that don't have dev skills anyway.
  
  Is there some metrics showing number of users with interactions like upvote/downtote?

Now this is a metric I can get behind, instead of the million bot accounts

Does this comment make me active now?
- That is correct. You would be counted in the next time they run the stats for this instance.
- Not sure, let's rise the odds together 👍
  
  I'll contribute some activity, as well 🙂
  
  Proud of you 2

Even if you do nothing else, make sure to upvote content and comments, and subscribe to communities. Bringing content over from reddit (or even just googling stuff) to the new applicable community would be extra helpful (a lot of empty communities at the moment).
Things keep looking better here, so I'm optimistic about lemmy.

Just been lurking until now but I guess we can +1 that active user count. Just waiting for sync to add a lemmy app and then it's full steam ahead.
- Sync for Lemmy should drop in a few days. You should subscribe to the Sync dev's official community for it: https://lemmy.world/c/syncforlemmy
- Sync is reddit to me, so when it goes down I can't see myself going back. I set up a Lemmy account yesterday and am impressed so far knowing it's still in the early stages. I'm excited to see what LJ can do with Lemmy.
  
  Then you should subscribe to LJ's official Sync for Lemmy community: https://lemmy.world/c/syncforlemmy

+1-I'm doing my part

To be honest, i am using reddit via Apollo and lemmy but as soon as that shuts down im transitioning to lemmy full time.
- I'm on some cracked official Reddit app that has the ads fully removed. I am not sure if it will still work afterwards but switching to Lemmy anyway.

And with all the apps pooping every 3 days it's getting even better!
- And some even poop many times a day
- I currently use Jerboa on Android, do you recommend any others to try?
  
  wefwef.app and LiftOff are both looking pretty good!
  
  I switched to Connect and loving it so far.

I'm here to boost that active user number. Hoping this takes off.
- Count me in. Now I can resume lurking.
  
  Huzzah!

The site has felt way more usable in the last week, too. Haven't had much time to contribute myself, but I was browsing Active last night and thought to myself "hey, this feels just like the Reddit I know and love"
Once the niche communities take the plunge, its endgame for Reddit
- I came here from r/sourdough so.... getting there
  
  Was not expecting that sub to have 410k members.
  Then again, sourdough is great, so I really shouldn't be surprised.

Man, I knew I made the right decision to promote "Barbie" on this Lemonworld thing instead of reddit.
- Oh, hi Margot Robbie. I loved you in Suicide Squad... the first one, I couldn't be bothered to watch the second one. Sorry 😅
  
  Note to self: Don't let people watch the first Suicide Squad movie.

This feels great. The posts right now seem a lot more genuine compared to reddit lately. Keep it up!

This seems like very important information worth sharing in general but also wherever these stats are posted including in the software itself (via (?) or tooltip).
It also means that the real number of active users, which includes lurkers, is actually higher.
I still think the majority of registered users are bots though. I don't think we have actually have 2,000,000 people on here.
What's a good estimate of lurkers? 10% of actives? 200% of actives?
- No one is in disagreement that bots are the majority of registered users.
- Usually places like this follow a 90-9-1 rule (though this will be skewed for now as all the people moving here from reddit are more likely to be in reddits 10%):
  90% lurk/simply view 9% participate (vote, etc) 1% create (effort posts, OP, etc).
  If we follow this then the actual non-bot number is closer to 400k than 2 million. As I said above though, currently it's skewed.
- I'm a little bit of a lurker yes. I comment when I think I can add something to the discussion, but I usually like to read more than I contribute unfortunately.
- If it's anything like /r/, it likely follows the 90/9/1 lurk/comment/post rule, or will, once the novelty wear soff and things settle.

I just signed up. Coming from reddit. Hopefully this is a good alternative.
- I've been here for a couple of days, if anything, I'm pleasantly surprised. This is not Reddit's first clusterfuck, and although there were alternatives at the time. It's finally nice to find something that isn't full of bigots.
  
  That has been the great thing about it, rediscovering that people can talk to strangers on the internet and actually be normal about it. Conversations here don't seem to devolve into fights as they invariably do on mainstream social sites. And I don't have to keep explaining to people that it's possible to care about other people, a concept which several people on Reddit told me was incomprehensible to them.
- We are all testing the waters. After a day i can say that the platform have a huge potential. Just be sure to use a well updated, fully integrated app for the best experience.
  
  I'm really hoping we get more and more users here. I miss having the niche communities that were still populated.
- Me too!

Giving this place a shot... Can't be worse than Reddit
- It certainly is better than Reddit, although that's not exactly hard to achieve to be fair.
- It'll definitely be better than Reddit. Reddit has honestly gotten pretty terrible in the last few years. Fediverse may have its flaws but it's still better than what Reddit has become (and ultimately what Reddit's for-profit wannabes will become).
- That's how I feel. Hopefully it'll be better.

People say the real migration will happen on July 1st, but people can't move if they don't know where the apps are going.
Link people to Sync for Lemmy and Liftoff for Lemmy (already usable) on Android
and Memmy for Lemmy (already usable) for those on iOS.
- Connect for Lemmy is in the Play store and not bad.
- Thunder and Summit are also pretty good suggestions for Android.
  I would link people to https://lemmy.world/post/465785
  
  I'm currently using Jerboa on android. Anything stand out that Thunder or Summit do better that's worth me taking a look at?
- I doubt many people will move. Most people will just start using the official app or move to another website. Lemmy doesn't have much content (yet), and that's yet worse than not having a good app. They will just quick look and go back, if even.
  
  At this point content is definitely needed more than users. I really to stick with lemmy but the content just isn't here... Like you said (yet)
  Those Reddit echo bots are really starting to annoy me now too.
  I'm still hopeful though, I don't want to go back to Reddit

Lemmy feels really good compared to reddit
- Agreed, after using it for a few days it's actually not too bad. Doesn't quite have the QoL stuff that some of Reddit's 3rd party apps had but it's still pretty good.
  
  the dev of Sync is making a Sync for Lemmy app. I'm assuming it's going to be a similar UI to the Reddit version, which I'm stoked about because that was the majority of my Reddit experience

Signed up like 15 minutes ago, count me in
- Welcome! Search Lemmy for "3 Day No Poop" to be totally caught up with last week's major events here.

we are going to the moon boiss. let's fuckking go
🚀 🌕
- Lmao 🤣 But 💎👐

My first comment here so that I’ll be counted as a ‘User’!

I’m excited to be here.

Previously uncounted lurker also commenting for the stats.
- Cool, more stats

Just found lemmy today, and I'm already liking it
- Welcome aboard. 👍

I’ve been lurking and trying to figure it all out so I’m not part of that stat so I’d imagine there are lots of folks like me. I’m not super active on Reddit but not having Apollo means I have to lurk somewhere else.
- Having a real app’s gonna help. I hope the 3PAs come soon.

I've definitely noticed the uptick in the number of communities and new posts. Exciting times.

this keeps getting touted but isn’t it a huge number of bots causing the rise?
- The bots have inflated the total users count (around 2.4 million), but they aren't active (yet). So for now active users is a recommended way to measure the fediverse. But once the bots start posting, we'll have to find another way to track real user activity.
  
  This is just really disappointing and gross. Is there any way to not have bots absolutely everywhere?
  
  wait how did we conclude that the bots aren't active yet?
- My understanding is that's causing the rise in accounts (2.5m!) not the active accounts data
- Everyone online is a bot except you.
- They made the general user number explode for sure, but those bots are not really active yet, so they don't count as "active users".
  
  If they’re like NewsUser and Botittest, the bots will flood this place when they start. Even though these two good bots have made this place a lot more usable, it feels like that’s what the “All” thread has become. Just news.
  Don’t get me wrong, I like the news feed, but now I understand why it became a separate thread in Reddit.
  Whichever the instances that lowered their guard were, there will be a day they will have to be defederated. It’ll be a test for this place, for sure.

Just realised I have not replied to anything yet, so using this thread to check it works.

The numbers have to be higher. I've been lurking so far without commenting. I Imagin a lot of other people have been too.
- Lurker checking in 😶‍🌫️
- One of us...One of us...
- 100% they are higher. I too have been just a lurker so far so I guess I'll make my first comment now to add to the stats :)
- I see you, lurker!
- Yah, one more for the hockey stick.

gas gas gas

Checking in (￣ー￣)ゞ

Much better metric to see how Lemmy is growing

let's go!

Commenting so I am active.
- I became scared to post on reddit in fear of having to cope with another clash regarding a mundane subject. I'm happy to restart commenting here, the mood seems so cool, it's refreshing!

Thank you for showing the growth in ACTIVE users, not just accounts. Its still impressive, and more truthful!

have been loving it so far, the jerboa app is either a bit buggy or this instance is having troubles
wishing sync devs could eventually adapt for lemmy, as i really liked the ui
- The sync dev is currently working on a Lemmy version. It won't be long.
- From what I've heard, this instance should be able to upgrade to 18.1 this week, and that'll help with bugs big-time, just had to wait because version 18 did away with captcha and that's needed to help keep out the swarm of bots.

I wanted to join lemmy 2 years ago but it was strict and my appeal got rejected. Now in ya face

Hi guys just made an account and deleted the Reddit app (after giving up hope and deleting Apollo). Guess this is where I’m hanging out now

Go lemmy, cant wait for sync for lemmy to come out too!

Make that 47501!

i am the active user

Finally I know what counts as an active user thank you!

I am a big lurker and I need to stop

Happy to be one of them and be contributing to a ton of communities, apps, and teams that im sure will help make this a successful and less centralized set of communities!

321 comments