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    • Die in a few weeks? No
    • Get more users than reddit? No
    • Be a place in the long run for privacy minded people to escape corporatism and have discussions about any topic? Yes

    • Let's be real, most of the growth of Reddit over the last 5 or so years haven't been the type of folks generating good content and discussion anyway. Even if Lemmy gets like 1% of the userbase this place is going to thrive.

    • I see a ton of support, thousands are making the jump and dozens of apps are being made/getting updated now. Seems Lemmy/Kbin will only grow from here as long as there's no major setbacks

  • It was here before the Reddit implosion, will be after. Question is, will you be?

    • Was using RiF and reddit for 12 years. Been on lemmy for a few weeks and I don't miss reddit. Certainly not going to try to use the official reddit app. So probably not using reddit even if I wanted to in the future.

  • I'm confident that the Fediverse will last. Sure, there's a lot of challenges with having nodes that can choose to not federate with each other; However, a large majority should federate over time so there can be cross-collaboration. At its worst case, we'll have some segmented nodes that, while unfederated, will still foster good communities. Nodes will come and go.

    While these large, centralized services for social media exist, people will always gravitate toward convenience. Unless catastrophe strikes, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. will always exist. But the fediverse gives us choice in a system where we generally had no choice but to use those platforms. After all, the alternative was old Forums that still had a solid userbase while other Forums collapsed and disappeared. If you provide a similar or better service to centralized services that is also convenient and user-friendly, then people will join the fediverse.

    At the moment it is nascent, complex, and requires some confidence. Things that seem simple such as searching for another Community on another instance and joining it can be difficult for users to grasp. Over time this will get better.

    Having grown up alongside the internet in its infancy, I've been very appreciative to experience the way in which it has changed over time. We're seeing another gradual shift, and a massive user base will associate with the fediverse. It's not going anywhere, but it certainly will never topple these massive corporations that have invested heavily into centralizing power, capturing the regulators and markets, and establishing themselves as information cartels that feast on the flow of money in the economy (read: parasitic leeches).

    At the end of the day, I couldn't care less about these other social media platforms. I've embraced decentralization and am having a blast here with the fediverse. It reminds me of the earlier days of the internet. I'm excited to see where this evolves and also watch it grow.

  • While I plan on using this platform for the forseeable future - I don't have too high hopes.

    I think it will probably go the way Mastodon is going. A few weeks of being "hot", then dropping off until it's pretty much business as usual, as it was before being the hot new thing. Don't get me wrong, I want Lemmy to succeed and replace reddit, but I wouldn't bet money on it.

    • I'm in a similar boat. I'd argue Lemmy has had more success than the other platforms from the other times this has happened, but whether or not that equates to its longevity remains to be seen.

      In truth, I'd rather have something different to Lemmy, as there's various annoyances I've had and worries I have with this platform. At the same time, it's my current best hope for a Reddit replacement, and it's not so egregious as to be unusable.

  • Definitely will stay around, yet, realistically speaking, I don't have much expectations about this endeavor even scratching reddit's monopoly in the next 1 ~ 3 years (I hope I'm mistaken), who knows what will happen in 10 or 20

  • When Reddit forces "new Reddit" is when the real migration will occur. Reddit is dying more and more every day.

    • But they promised us that old reddit isn't going anywhere. Surely, we can trust that something won't happen if they say it won't happen, right?

      • You can trust that it won't happen in the next fifteen minutes, probably. I wouldn't believe much further out than that.

  • I like it. It's not reddit and I like that about it most. I think it will stay and grow. I think we know what we don't want now and Lemmy could just be it.

  • I hope they're going to find a way to make the whole federation thing less messy, otherwise I don't think Lemmy is going to be as big as Reddit ever was.

    Also they have to solve the front page, where new topics are loading in from the TOP pushing everything down. Really annoying.

  • The Fediverse will live on as long as two people want to share content. Users ebb like waves on the shore, and the sea level is rising.

    • I'd favour Lemmy for mass adoption in the long run, mostly because Twitter was never actually that big, and people can just microblog on Facebook or Tiktok. Reddit has far more users that might want to look at alternatives and their realistic options today are this or Tildes, who doesn't seem to actually want most people to join.

    • the Fediverse is slow social media

      YES. I wondered what I liked so much about Lemmy, and it's definitely that.

  • It will last. I plan to stay here. I hope everyone else does too. Even if Reddit totally went completely back to how it was, I deleted my account because I don't like their attitude. I also find the conversation better here. And it's all open source, which is always my preference.

    Same with Twitter, I still use it to follow F1 drivers but that's it. 99% of my socials is done on Mastodon now as there are more people there who share my interests and it's open source.

  • Lemmy might pass for various reason, but the protocol wont. It's here to stay until a better protocol comes along

  • It all depends on if Reddit continues to make decisions with disastrous optics. If this is the one and only user bump Lemmy will get off the back of Reddit, I can see it dying down in the future, but if there's more I think it'll take flight and eventually start snowballing on its own merits. I'm not sure if it'll ever be mainstream, but it'll persist - as it was before all this.

  • It's been going for 4 years now. I think the worst case scenario is it falls back to the numbers it had before this reddit incident.

  • Lemmy has been around for quite a while, well before any of the recent issues. The userbase will probably die back once people get bored and go back to Reddit but some of us will still be here

  • Mass migrations are always uphill battles. I've seen too many similar cases that appeared to start strong but lacked the momentum to put down their roots. We'll have a much better chance if just a handful of the top r/ can convince their u/ to move here.

  • It all depends on us. I hope for more servers that FEDERATE - I'm trying hard to cut /r/ out of my life... if we do that, lemmy and the fediverse can live on... Will you?

    pAULIE42o

  • I don't know about you but I'm here to stay. Also, you need to define "die", since lemmy existed long before reddit drama and will be here after their downfall even if users leave it'll continue to exist.

  • It existed for years before reddit had its issue.

    On the other side of the fediverse that's more like Twitter, Elon Musk pissed a bunch of people off and we've seen a few waves of new users. How it has worked is there's an inrush of people, some people go "Wait a minute, this isn't my old platform! I don't like it!" and go back, some people stick around.

    Once people start to realize how friggin' cool the fediverse as a whole is, I think a bunch of people stay. Especially realizing that it takes all power away from corporate overlords and gives a lot of power to people who run their own instances.

  • We'll have to wait and see but I think this last issue with Reddit has given Lemmy enough of a boost that it will get the required amount of momentum.

    It won't be long before a lot of the classic subs are reproduced over here and new users will be able to turn up and slot straight in and carry on doing what they were doing over there all pretty seamlessly.

    It would be interesting to know what percentage of the most active posters made the jump as they are likely providing a much higher percentage of the content than the average user. It's those people that will really make a difference.

    I also think having Fediverse alternatives to so much corporate social media and how well it cooperates with each other is also key. I am busy moving myself over to these services and I am liking what I see. It will always occupy a layer under the corporate one but that might be a good thing - like them act as the bullet magnet and let us just get in with things.

  • I would like to think this is my new home, but I still have a lot of learning to do about the fediverse. I won't be going back to Reddit and using their garbage app and site, but I also still need to learn how to maneuver this new land before it can be a true alternative for me

179 comments