I don’t. I like how I can comment on something and not have it buried. Engagement is much higher here
Yeah--I constantly read about how people liked reddit back in the day, or liked digg, but don't connect it to the fact that the reason why they were better back in the day was because they were smaller and more intimate (for lack of a better word).
I'm excited for the fediverse to grow, but for me it's already reached that critical mass for it to be engaging
That intimacy was still available on Reddit, but you needed to dig into the niche subs to find it. Commenting on large subs was definitely a cup of water in the ocean feeling.
Oh absolutely--that's really the only reason I was able to stay on reddit. I do miss some of those smaller communities, but have resorted to actual forums now (if applicable), or just going without.
Shoutouts to the fiberglassflyrodders.com forums
Ehh…as someone who was on Reddit and Digg back in the day, they were much larger than Lemmy currently is.
Sure but the fediverse isn't just Lemmy. I'm commenting through kbin right now for example.
They weren't born large. Reddit was seeded with content by the developers before the users came. The secret to growing a community is to grow a community. It all has to start somewhere and frankly, fediverse is starting with a much stronger kick start than digg and Reddit ever had.
As someone who was on Reddit and Digg way way back in the day, there was a point where they were about the size of what Lemmy currently is.
hear, hear! i don't miss all the spam and bots.
The UI definitely needs an update. Need more distinction between comments.
You can try changing appearance theme found in the settings (gear) icon towards the bottom. Helped with differentiating comments.
I do agree that UI needs improvement which will eventually come.
I understand this only because my husband still is looking at reddit. I had to have a talk with him as to why I am changing platforms, the point of not visiting a site during a protest, and how Lemmys and kbin need time to grow. He was looking at news and he said "well your site doesn't have anything! It's basically empty where am I supposed to go for discussion!"
I told him he needs to either just view the news sites directly and contribute, or just try to curb usage and allow the sites time to grow. Use your phones native news app for now, whatever it takes to not add to Reddits ad revenue and user count.
If this was reddit, you'd be smothered in replies asking why you haven't left your husband yet.
Red flags everywhere, you know I'd forgotten that was everyone's response on reddit!
I mean, there's a lot of content here already.
Yeah it's not the same endless dopamine drip feed conveyor belt that is Reddit, but there's plenty of content to engage with.
Yeah it's not the same endless dopamine drip feed conveyor belt that is Reddit
Which sure as hell isn't a bad thing!
I've been enjoying commenting and having a more social experience here rather than endlessly lurking :)
Leaving reddit has made me start looking at actual websites for content and then if I like it I bring it back here. Where in reddit everything was pretty much guaranteed to already been linked somewhere. I know if this community get big the same thing will happen. But for now I actually feel a part of the community instead of just passively experience the community.
Better to be a grower than a shower
It took me an embarrassing long time to process the word "shower" in that phrase lol.
On the contrary, the smallest communities are the most fun and enjoyable to interact in. The big ones are just good for making sure there’s always fresh content on /r/all every few hours. It’ll grow. This is just the first big migration wave, there will be more when the third party apps shut off and there will be more again once people start realizing it’s not just a tiny forum experiment no one cares about.
The current communities are a bit too small to be really engaging. There's often only a handful of comments instead of a wealth of discussion. It will grow and they will get better, but it's understandable that some people are feeling the content is a bit hollow currently. I bet another doubling in size (very doable) would easily bring us to the activity level needed for things to be lively and fresh.
Yup and that's the reason I think it is crucial now to stay here and be active instead of going back just because the learning heard goes after the memes. As Valdair said, it'll grow step by step now that a proper alternative exists. Everyone just needs to do their part, either by posting, commenting or developing.
Reddit feels like it grew exponentially the last few years. I noticed a huge increase in the number of accounts with auto-generated usernames and accounts referring to Reddit as an "app." To me it also seemed to become increasingly toxic with this new wave of users. Hoping for a big reset with one of these new offshoots.
On reddit if you were european you were basically missing the action since the posts were written by americans and already 8 hours old, and your replies would be buried under the hundreds of comments.
Most of the time there was no point if you weren't present like 1h after a post was made.
The only people who would read your comments would be an AI.
I don't lol, every comment and post I made there was like screaming into the void. The responses you do get in large subs are either tired memes, people trying to argue even though they agree with you, or just straight up bots reposting comments.
I usually only lurked on the larger subs because of that problem
My wife says, "it's not the size but what you do with it". And she's really smart. But seriously, I'm loving the smaller start. We'll grow, but right now I feel like I'm heard on a level Reddit never offered. Every great journey begins with a single step.
I have size but don't know what to do with it, can confirm women don't like that.
It's definitely a higher engagement ratio or whatever the right term is for it! I do love that!
I think there’s a size between Reddit and Lemmy that’s ideal. And as Lemmy grows it will get hopefully there. I have no desire to post a comment in a thread with 10k comments. I’m more hopeful that Lemmy will get better than in hopeful that Reddit won’t get worse.
It feels like a bit of an unpopular opinion, but I agree - I was definitely more of a lurker on reddit than a massive contributor (14 years, <30k karma), but I loved how there was always a relevant subreddit for even fairly niche interests. I miss that on the fediverse - but at the same time, I'm hopeful that the fediverse will, in time, gain wider attention. I don't miss the low quality content, but I miss the sheer volume of content, and with careful curation of subreddits, managing the signal to noise ratio was easy enough.
Just like a bad ex…. Gotta just let it go.
kbin could be a bit bigger, but the collective reddit personality is downright insufferable, and I suspect it's largely because of its size. There are just too many people with opinions as strong as they are different, and we're often not any better off after our interactions with them.
Plus all the troll bots and fake AI posts.
Meh, I haven't see a single toxic comment since I came here, althought that will probably eventually change. I don't expect toxicity will become a huge issue. Every time I've encountered toxicity on Reddit basically boils down to either covert racism, or false accusations of being a racist.
Have you noticed basically no one downvotes here? The user base seems to be more accessible and emotionally mature in general so far.
I also choose this guy's social media size.
But seriously, it might grow in time. I think if it gets more accessible, people will start using one of the fediverse flavours, and it will grow from there.
I do too BUT, it's nice to actually get to engage with people when I make a comment due to the smaller community. Reddit is so big, my comments usually get buried quickly under the memes and quips.
When I started on Reddit in 2012, it was mostly because I was in Rarotonga and I needed something to entertain myself that didn't use hoards of data like YouTube did for me at the time and Reddit was largely text and image based so it fit the bill perfectly.
Over the years I definitely saw a cultural shift and the quality of content absolutely dropped but there was still so much of it that I could still lurk...
This fediverse does a pretty good job of capturing that same vibe of text based forums that I'm really enjoying, whilst I totally get what you're saying about the size of Reddit I'm more than happy to be hanging out here and I actually like the simple interface, reminds me of my Nexus 4 days hah
I, too, am a size queen.
Jokes aside, I was telling irl people about how even if I post something to the craft communities, there just isn't a critical mass to make me feel validated from posting.
I made kind of a big overture in many comment sections agreeing with others that kbin felt kinder and different from 2017-present reddit, but then a lot of folks came in and started up the same low-effort content communities and fell back into the same patterns of memes, so now it kind of feels grubby.
And the places on reddit where I loved lurking and reading analyses and hot takes (news, world news, politics) all are total ghost towns in the Fediverse (at least, what early magazines I've subscribed to last weekend).
Whatever the perks are here - and I'm aware it's all a work in progress at this stage - it lacks robustness for me.
Became so huge that I was typing a comment on Reddit and most of the time half way through I gave up and close the tab cause it wasn't worth it. It would get buried.
I have a hunch: if you knew how much of Reddit's size was bots or work accounts pushing a paid for agenda, you wouldn't miss it.
I liked it's size in terms of breadth. You could find a niche subreddit maybe on a TV show, hobby or small community and find an active sub.
However on the bigger subs I hated the fact you were drowned by the hive mind.
Size isn't everything. I bet you have heard that before?
Actually, Reddit is too big. Go back ten years, then it was a good size. Before the tons of spam, reposts, onlyfans, owners hell-bent on turning Reddit into some Twitter freak shit show.
I know the overall sentiment is that size doesn't matter, but to new users looking at these sites, that want to see recent posts and engagement. We want people coming from Reddit to feel like the site is growing so they get invested and contribute.
It's still early days though so keen to see how this pans out over the next few weeks, especially with the API ending on the 1st of July. Think we'll get another wave of uptick.
Honestly, I have had my hands full acclimating to the fediverse, bumping between instances to "try them on for size" over the last several days post-Rexxit . . . And the growth just in that short span has been exponential.
I suspect Lemmy will rival the hugeness sooner than you think.
Plus, its been kinda cool to sort by "New" to find new communities/magazines and actual quality content!
I think there will be another surge on July 1 when 3rd party apps go offline. As submissions, activity, and moderation on reddit decline, it could lead to a larger stream of users leaving the platform and looking for an alternative. Fleshing out content and functionality in the fediverse before in advance of Reddit's death spiral feels important.
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