How many subscribers does a community need to have to become self sustaining so that the active posters can retire? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 22 hours ago by Sunshine@lemmy.ca to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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[-] andrew_s@piefed.social 12 points 18 hours ago

Well, there's the The 90-9-1 Rule for Participation Inequality in Social Media and Online Communities, which suggests:

Summary: In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

So whatever number you're looking for, it's 1% of that. Not that subscriber count means much, especially for older communities that have 10's of thousands of subscribers who aren't even using the platform any more.

[-] bamfic@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

My god it's a power law! Like damn near everything in biology, sociology, history, politics, and economics.

[-] Blaze@feddit.org 3 points 14 hours ago

Not that subscriber count means much, especially for older communities that have 10’s of thousands of subscribers who aren’t even using the platform any more.

Agreed, active users are a better metric.

[-] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 2 points 16 hours ago

I expect the numbers have probably gotten worse over time, but it is a decent rule of thumb.

It also requires making sure the community will accept content from new members. It is fine to enforce rules, but overzealous enforcement can push out other active members.

this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024

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