Like a lot of people here have already said, I think a different space is being created for those that are more in the know. The average person just isn't as invested or versed in what's going on to move to a different platform when the current is working fine for them.

It has potential, bu I hope it will not become like those mainstream soc-med..
Fediverse is like a village where each denizen trying to self-sufficent and helping each others while mainstream soc-med is like train station or mall where users just come and go while giving money to its owner for their services..
We may need one or two mainstream soc-med to be alive to keep up with news or to socialize with normies, but we also need a place to retreat like current fediverse.
edit:typo

Be careful what you wish for.

Some of the best online communities I've been a part of in the past are ones that no one outside of that niche group knew about. Now obviously, that can be very limiting if the people on that site ONLY talk about that one and only one subject, but making a site too vague and too big can be an issue (ex: Reddit).

I think if we all just leave Reddit behind and commit to Lemmy, things will fall into place. I haven’t logged into reddit since the 30th, and things here have been just fine. I’m regularly getting responses to my comments and there’s good discussion everywhere I look on Lemmy. As far as I can see, it’s only a matter of time before it’s “mainstream”.

I see the potential with Lemmy. I was able to adapt to this far quicker than Mastodon. Albeit I was more of a Reddit user and barely touched Twitter.

What I'm curious about is how things will fair once the two competitors of Twitter come out soon. - Threads and Bluesky.

When you can convince your friends to use Signal, you can convince them to use Mastodon and Lemmy... So, I vote 'No' ☹️

I really wish people would think a bit bigger. I hear "I don't want regular people here/it doesn't need to grow" all the time but don't you wonder how much better things would be if the average person wasn't constantly on a platform designed to enrage and exploit them?

There's already a lot of traffic on Lemmy. I'm constantly surprised to see posts with 400+ responses. I think it's already hit critical mass (Enough activity to keep people here).

I don't understand why everyone is talking about this going mainstream or winning against Reddit. If that happens then in come the corporate interests to ruin it. We don't need to take on the unlimited growth unsustainable business model we can just be happy with what we have

God I hope so, I'm so tired of every aspect of our lives being monetized or having an ad shoved into our faces.

I think it will but not for a while. We need more quality contents and not just beans.

Imo reddit and twitter had both become too big and bloated, leading to a lit of the toxicity/recycled content. I think there's plenty of room for more platforms to arise and become successful, while the old ones stay "mainstream"

Basically reddit and Twitter will become the new Facebook over the next 5-10 years.

How much horrific awkward teenage shit did Reddit have to go through to get where it is now? Bacon narwhals at midnight, rage comics, bullying an uninvolved brown kid into suicide after the Boston bombings, reluctantly removing CP adjacent subs only after being called out on cable news, the /r/fatpeoplehate nonsense, /r/antiwork mod humiliating xirself on Fox News, the woody harrelson rampart ama, fumbling the bag by firing Victoria, probably 20 more.

They could if starting out it was easier. Once you hit people with "sign up for any instance ..." you will loose the majority of non-technical people.

It doesn't need to completely replace the current platforms. The beauty of the decentralized internet is that platforms suddenly disappearing/dying wouldn't mean we lose years or decades of information that was contained in that site/forum/corporate entity.

Decentralization would also encourage a lot of people to go back to blogging, which would mean information would come from all over the web again.

It would need massive UI improvement.

I think we need to see how the content and platform grow organically over time. Reddit is an incredible resource and forum for very niche communities that don't really have a better place to chat outside of Facebook or things like that - where they can remain anonymous.

The whole concept of different worlds connected to communities might scare some people off - but I think naturally new apps will pop up that streamline this whole thing.

As someone who is currently tutoring computer science courses for college, I think you greatly over estimate the average computer users ability to navigate a place like Reddit, let alone Lemmy. Most people I tutor for intro classes struggle to understand a file browser. Even for me Lemmy was slightly intimidating with how it jumps to the whole open source/ chose an instance thing before I could make an account.

Lemmy will need a basic app before it really jumps to the main stream.

Let go of that thought. Reddit is (probably) here to stay. Lemmy will have less users, less communities, and tbh, probably less quality content. That's okay. Grow your seeds.

The average user does not care enough about the reasons that drive people off the mainstream social media - in short, they're idiots. So, no, these won't replace the shitty mainstream solutions, because most people just have no clue that they really should.

Becoming mainstream started the slow strangulation of Reddit for me. The conversations became more polarizing and stiffling. The takes less thoughtful, and the unoriginal comments more prevalent. So I hope Lemmy doesn't become mainstream.

I do think Lemmy can grow, but if the recent events were not able to slow down the Reddit juggernaut; I do not see another platform coming to rival Reddit.

I don't think it's really helpful to think about lemmy and mastodon as "replacements".

They're alternatives, with their own quirks and cultures.

They're undoubtedly a significant step on the way to whatever social media will evolve into. Whether they become "mainstream" or more active than their predecessors is kind of irrelevant IMO.

Lemmy: yes

Mastodon: ONLY IF IT CHANGES ITS SHITTY, CLUMSY, UGLY, UNINTUITIVE NAME to something with more of the following features:

1. Two syllables with the accent on the first (trochee)
2. Bright, sharp consonant and sibilant phonemes that pop (instead of dull, wooden, sonorous ones that flop)
3. Has a v or r sound in it to make it sound powerful
4. Bouncy and fun to say, therefore memorable

For example, it might catch on with a name like "Trunky" - I'm sure people who are more creative than me might come up with even better names.

After using it for a few days and having an account for a few hours (this is my first comment), I don't think it will ever directly compete. But I think it does have chance to represent a "significant minority" of internet traffic if it doesn't peter out early on, and it may already be passed the threshold for that happening.

You'd never say email can "compete" with twitter, but it's still a significant way people interact with the internet. If lemmy does for independent communities and niche forums what email does for messaging, I'd consider it a huge success!

While I sincerely hope so, possibly unpopular opinion... Lemmy will have to offer a lot more than "Not Reddit". It'll have to build up as a primary destination for a lot of "content of substance" and culture around creating and nurturing it (just cross posting from Reddit will not cut it). It may have to offer communities and opportunities Reddit bans or suppresses, although there should be some red lines there. And, like all Federated technologies, it will have to actively work to reduce friction for potential users.

It depends what you mean by "mainstream". If by that you imply that the Fediverse will become a true public forum, and a place to exchange ideas and form opinions, then yes, I would like for it to be a counterweight to legacy media and corporate content silos. However, if the fediverse becomes yet another astroturfed propaganda outlet, then no, I do not want it to become mainstream. Fortunately, the loose Fediverse network makes it hard to take over and control, provided that the ActivityPub protocol remains untainted by actions of bad actors.

First post on Lemmy. I hope that Lemmy and Mastodon can replace Reddit and Twitter. It feels hard to imagine right now, because finding communities and signing up is really confusing. I already gave up on Mastodon because it was too much of a hassle.

I don't want it to. I want lemmy to stay niche but active

All I need are the quality people and post and reply from reddit to join lemmy