2761
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

Current breakdown at the time of this post sorted by the number of monthly active users:

  1. lemmy.world: 101,013 total users / 27,472 active users
  2. lemmy.ml: 41,972 total users / 4,905 active users
  3. beehaw.org: 12,270 total users / 4,178 active users
  4. sh.itjust.works: 17,509 total users / 3,381 active users
  5. feddit.de: 8,675 total users / 2,935 active users
  6. lemm.ee: 10,348 total users / 2,751 active users
  7. lemmynsfw.com: 22,967 total users / 2,310 active users
  8. lemmy.fmhy.ml: 8,777 total users / 1,704 active users
  9. lemmy.ca: 5,072 total users / 1,656 active users
  10. programming.dev: 5,058 total users / 1,242 active users

Source: https://the-federation.info/platform/73

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[-] xantoxis@lemmy.one 224 points 1 year ago

That's pretty cool.

I'm truly not being a negative nancy but the last time I checked reddit had 400M user accounts. We should be comparing active user numbers, but either way, this is a drop in the bucket and reddit rightly does not consider Lemmy a threat to its supremacy at this point.

We're doing great though! Good trajectory.

[-] TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world 359 points 1 year ago

I don't need Lemmy to compete with or kill Reddit. All I wanted was any one platform to get enough of an influx of users to be self-sustaining even after the outrage started to die down, which appears to have been successful.

[-] relative_iterator@sh.itjust.works 138 points 1 year ago

Yeah as long as we have an active enough community here it doesn’t matter what goes on at reddit.

[-] _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works 35 points 1 year ago

It kinda does in that when things worsen, more people come to Lemmy, but I agree that Lemmy's success doesn't depend on reddit's demise.

[-] Historical_General@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

It should behave as a viable and threatening adversary for reddit. As long as reddit carries on doing as it does and lemmy's communities carry on building, we're winning by blocking Reddit's monopoly on mainstream forum-type social media.

[-] _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago

I guess what I'm saying is: Lemmy won't kill reddit, reddit will kill reddit.

[-] earosner@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Yea, but that is how most large organizations fail. Just by sheer inertia they continue to exist. Digg failed because of Digg, not because of Reddit.

[-] Lemmylefty@lemmy.world 102 points 1 year ago

Exactly. I don’t want or need to build another McDonalds or Starbucks; I just want to go to the Mom and Pop down the road without worrying if they’ll tank.

[-] knova@links.dartboard.social 8 points 1 year ago
[-] TheRedBadger@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

This is exactly it

[-] deranger@lemmy.world 49 points 1 year ago

I agree. Just give me some decent posts and discussion. For niche things I can go to a big platform with all the users. For my daily browsing, I appreciate a small but active community.

[-] ghostBones@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

That actually tracks, since lemmy is supposedly populated mostly by "older nerdy males". I mean they have a point, the quality of discussion is definitely better -- for now. That could end with an Endless September event.

[-] c2h6@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

I agree, reddit got too big to be fun. That said lemmy still needs to get bigger in order for communities to actually thrive.

[-] varzaman@lemm.ee 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I disagree. What made Reddit for me is that there were so many people on it, than any niche hobby had it’s own space.

Sure the main big subreddits were shit shows, but the hobby subreddits were great! Something that still isn’t a thing for Lemmy. Specialization.

I still find myself checking Reddit out for subreddits on specific niche games for example.

Like there is literally a subreddit for almost anything. Robot vacuums. Sins of a Solar Empire. Crusader kings. Fish tanks. MotoGP.

Things that probably will take a while to get running on Lemmy.

Right now Lemmy is too “general” for me to really have a feed of things I actually care about.

[-] Tarsn@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

The 40k community is pretty solid here and growing

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[-] scarabic@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Exactly. Well said. We have all the time in the world to grow. What we needed was a good start, and we got it. Just keep creating content, volunteer to mod somewhere, and don’t look back.

[-] DanTheMan827@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What it really needed was a good app.

It’s still glitchy though… like on memmy, if you swipe too far to downvote, and go back, the color for upvote is still the downvote color

[-] TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I tried a few different apps but I settled on just using the mobile website on my phone. The interface is solid even there, which I think is a great feat.

[-] Historical_General@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I've only just been able to log into this accont using private mode, I only just realised that emptying the cache would've worked or something - but the wierd thing it my account wasn't working on mobile apps either so I didn't think to empty cache on desktop...

Sync for Lemmy can't come soon enough.

[-] ReallyKinda@kbin.social 71 points 1 year ago

Personally I don’t care if I’m talking to millions of people vs hundreds of thousands as long as there are enough people to make it feel alive and like a community.

[-] Xeelee@kbin.social 34 points 1 year ago

Exactly. I don't give a fuck about Reddit any more. I'd rather be in a niche community with (some) quality content than on some huge site with mainly reposts. We're not in competition with Reddit. Were trying to be a better alternative.

[-] magnetosphere@kbin.social 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It’s a hard habit to break, because we’ve been trained to think this way for years, but try to remember: we don’t need to attract millions of users to be valuable. This isn’t a commercial enterprise. We don’t sell advertising. We don’t measure success by the number of eyeballs we can promise paying customers.

What matters now is the quality of conversation. In fact, that’s the ONLY measure of any consequence. It’s strange, because in the past, someone’s often tried to use services like this as a way to make money, or as a way to make something else they were selling more attractive. We expected it. It was always in the back of our heads. It even got to the point that if a company did something that wasn’t an effort to increase profitability, we criticized them. Generosity, real generosity, was alien to us.

It’s hard to wrap your head around the idea that people volunteer their time and money to build and maintain the fediverse, simply because they want us to be able to communicate. That’s it. There’s no hidden agenda. There’s no quest for profit at our expense.

I’m perfectly fine with the fediverse growing slowly. I don’t want it to be strained beyond what the mods can handle. Bigger isn’t necessarily better.

[-] Nowyn@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 year ago

Coming from the non-profit world, it is never that easy. Even when there is no one officially making any money, there are people who will see it as a way to make some bank. There is also a drawback in that not making money can and will affect the amount of time people can put in unless there is a fair way to get them compensation. Volunteering also brings a huge amount of interpersonal and inter-organizational drama. That is why grassroots organizations and movements have a habit of fracturing into smaller groups.

At the same time, there is power in goodwill and being non-profit. You just really need to be careful in vetting your instance and keep an eye on issues in a way people not used to this type of world are not familiar with.

But I wouldn't be here if I didn't have a belief that it could be successful enough as a community. I also wouldn't have been working in the NGO world for the past decade if I didn't believe in that. But let's not have too rosy glasses on. Growing slowly will also give this community a chance to work out the kinks and not die in a blaze of fire.

[-] miles@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Agreed on the need to adjust mindset. Initially I behaved similarly to how I did on that other site until I realized that Lemmy is different and that’s ok. It’s a lot smaller and federation has its advantages and drawbacks and we’ll see it in action soon enough. Many seek the comfort of the familiar and are not always finding it. Start by appreciating the hard work that has allowed many of us to transition here quite easily. Take a deep breath, look around and realize that we are now playing a different game.

[-] magnetosphere@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah. It is kind of weird at first. You and I have PRSD - Post Reddit Stress Disorder.

[-] biddy@feddit.nl 4 points 1 year ago

In the case of social network like this, bigger generally is better for the users. The thing that made Reddit great was that whatever your niece interest, there was a community of thousands of other interested people. There was so much information and advice on whatever obscure topic.

There's a reason why there's only around 10 really popular social networks and it's certainly not that those platforms are any good. The network effect is important.

[-] Rakn@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I personally don't derive any value from high quality conversations about topics I don't care about. That's why I need these millions of users, so that there are people I can talk with. About topics I care about. I'm willing to go on a limb here an say that your interests and mine don't fully align.

[-] magnetosphere@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

That’s a reasonable point.

[-] sjm@lemm.ee 24 points 1 year ago

for me i'm over comparing to Reddit, I'm just looking for somewhere in a similar format but without a bunch of the issues that I can enjoy

[-] MicroWave@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I’m truly not being a negative nancy but the last time I checked reddit had 400M user accounts. We should be comparing active user numbers, but either way, this is a drop in the bucket and reddit rightly does not consider Lemmy a threat to its supremacy at this point.

Even when considering accounts across all lemmy instances, it still only combines for a total of 2 million. But overall I'm optimistic about lemmy's trajectory too.

[-] bettyspaghetti@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago

The other thing is, how many of those 400M accounts are bots?

[-] Kindbudnuggz@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

A fuckton. Also I created over 10 accounts over the years as I left reddit and came back. So I know that number is bloated af.

[-] Docus@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Or dropshippers. Or karmawhores

[-] pensivepangolin@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Or my personal favorite: karmawhoring bots reposting content stolen from other peoples’ OnlyFans accounts.

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[-] wwaxwork@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

How many did they have when they were the age Lemmy is now?

[-] CoffeeDart@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I kinda don't agree that that would provide any valuable insight unless you factor in the ease of access to the internet and speeds and availability of smartphones and computers across the world back when reddit was in its infancy

[-] wwaxwork@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

It would provide more insight than comparing their current figures. When Uber started, if you compared the number of people that got taxis in those first months to Ubers numbers you'd have bet on Uber to be out of business in months.

[-] Wooly@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

I went back onto Reddit today and like 20 posts in popular had 5k+ comments. I really miss the variety but, we'll get there.

[-] xpinchx@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

On a good day maybe 500 of those are quality comments and the rest are bots, emojis, trolling, or general meme/shit post comments.

I get what you mean though.

[-] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 8 points 1 year ago

I mean, it's more of a threat than it was. In all likelihood, this won't be the last time reddit does something to really anger it's userbase. There is a much higher chance of people leaving in future incidents if there is an alternative platform with enough users to actually have the content people want.

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[-] eran_morad@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

so, like, 500,000 after deducting OF thots?

[-] Zerlyna@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I had 3 Reddit accounts and I can’t be the only one with multiples.

[-] mayo@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I think the stat is actually 430M monthly active users. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/reddit-statistics/

It's nuts.

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[-] rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Some thoughts on that, Reddit has half a billion monthly active users. Lemmy has about 50k monthly active users. That's .01% or one ten thousandth. We won't be displacing Reddit anytime soon, but then we don't want to. That's the main problem with Reddit, it's too damn big and too damn corporate. The main thing is Lemmy sees enough growth to stay relevant and viable. It doesn't have to compete with anyone.

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[-] scarabic@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

No, what we should be comparing is Reddit year 1 numbers with these. They’ve had 20 years to grow organically. I bet Lemmy’s start would look a lot more promising than Reddit’s. And Reddit also had much larger competitors when it came out, if you recall.

[-] S_204@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Do we know how many of those accounts are bots? I'm curious because I definitely ended up interacting with many many bots recently on that site.

[-] c2h6@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Nobody's ever gonna have an accurate answer.

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[-] dudebro@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I make new reddit accounts everyday.

I'm working on a bot that makes them for me and manipulates votes.

Fuck reddit.

[-] mrmanager@lemmy.today 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Have to agree with others, we don't want the majority from reddit here. They helped to turn reddit into crap.

I would rather see this be like the Linux community. Just a few percent of users, but all very motivated and interested in Linux.

[-] Magiwarriorx@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

On a user-driven platform, not all users are created equal. Lurkers bring little to no value to the platform beyond clicks. There might be a huge engagement difference on a per user basis.

Moreover... I just want my niche communities to be active. We will never have Reddit's archive of content, but we can get to a point where the Lemmy's corpus of knowledge grows to at the same rate as Reddit's. I don't know how many users it'll take to achieve that; 500k? 1m? 2m? 10m? No one knows that number, but to me that is the number to beat.

this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
2761 points (100.0% liked)

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