What are your thoughts on the Lemmy ecosystem?

I’ve been trying it out for the last week. I have my own opinions, but I’d like to hear others and see if we have common ideas on what is good/bad/indifferent about the Lemmy ecosystem.

  • celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    18·
    9 hours ago

    An effective alternative in every sense of the word to Reddit? Nope, not by a long shot, but that’s mostly a function of time and general awareness that the platform exists. For now, it’s a great place for better political debate than what Reddit offers, and in general the memes feel more intimate, like you’re viewing something that a lemmy user might have made rather than triple deepfried imgur vomit all over Reddit.

  • Blaze (he/him)@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    94·
    13 hours ago

    Welcome here!

    Copy pasting from a recent thread on /r/RedditAlternatives trying to address usual criticism against Lemmy.

    Federation is confusing, people want a single website they can go to

    Email has been working on a federation model for decades. People have to remember if they use Gmail or Outlook, but that’s it. It’s similar here.

    Several communities have the same name, it’s confusing, active communities are hard to find

    Reddit has a similar issue: you have /r/games as the main gaming community, but there is also /r/Gaming, /r/videogames /r/gamers, etc.

    How does someone know what the main community is, whatever the platform? Looking at the number of subscribers and active members.

    There was the example of beekeeping: if you search for that topic, the most active one is definitely https://mander.xyz/c/beekeeping with 97 users per month.

    The others have barely 1 user: https://lemmyverse.net/communities?query=beekeeping

    To find active communities: https://lemm.ee/c/newcommunities@lemmy.world. There are regular threads with active communities on topic such as gardening, movies, board games, anime, science, etc.

    Who is going to pay for the server costs?

    Here is a link to this question to Lemmy admins: https://lemm.ee/post/41577902

    Summary of the answers:

    • lowest number so far: lemmy.ml with 0.03€ per user per month
    • a few others (feddit.uk, lemmy.zip) have around 0.11$ per user per month
    • some instances are running on infrastructure that the admins would be anyway, so it’s virtually “free”

    Most of the instances costs are paid using donations. They regularly post financial updates such as this one: https://lemm.ee/post/41235568

    Obviously there is a sweet stop where you can minimize the cost by having the maximum number of users on a fixed infrastructure cost.

    If you want to have a look at the number of monthly active user (the “MAU” column): https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy/

    Anyway, $ per user is usually meaningless because most of the servers are small enough to be hosted on some random cheap server - adding more users doesn’t cost more because they are still well below server capacity. Only the biggest servers have to worry about $ per user.

    I had posted this earlier this week on this thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1fiuuo5/how_much_does_it_cost_per_user_to_host_a_lemmy/

    There is too much political content

    You can block entire servers and specific communities.

    Instances to block to avoid political content

    Communities to block

    With those blocked, you are avoiding 95% of the political content. There might be a few other communities that pop up, but blocking them is still one click away.

    Lemmy is developped by hardcore tankies and I don’t want to use their software

    As Lemmy is federated using an open protocol, there are other options to connect to the communities without using Lemmy itself.

    The first one is Piefed: https://piefed.social/c/newcommunities@lemmy.world

    The other one is Mbin: https://fedia.io/m/newcommunities@lemmy.world

    However, those are stil a bit less mature than Lemmy, so for instance if you want to use mobile apps a lot, Lemmy is a better choice.

    On top of that, every Lemmy server is managed by different people. You can see regular criticism of lemmy.ml (the instance managed by the Lemmy devs) on threads such as this: https://lemm.ee/post/33872586 or even dedicated communities like https://lemm.ee/c/meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works

    That shows that even the Lemmy devs are not protected from criticism.

    There isn’t enough people

    Lemmy has 46k monthly active users (https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats) (Mbin and Piefed have around 800 each). Active user is someone who voted, posted or commented.

    In comparison, Discuit, which was praised during the API shutdown as “easier to use as it’s centralized” has 234 active users: https://discuit.net/DiscuitMeta/post/KdiI1akq. Not 234k, 234 total.

    For obvious reasons, the activity is not going to match Reddit levels, and niche communities aren’t there.

    But it’s not an all or nothing situation. Most people on Lemmy still use Reddit for their niche communities, but are also active on Lemmy. And some niche communities are getting more active on lemmy. https://lemm.ee/c/newcommunities@lemmy.world (!newcommunities@lemmy.world ) promotes them.

    Also, having less people provides better interactions, as your comments are less likely to get buried in thousands of others. And bots on Lemmy are quickly spotted and banned, while Reddit doesn’t seem to do much about that: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/1fmcelm/askreddit_is_simply_over_run_with_bots/

    • doctortran@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      5 hours ago

      How does someone know what the main community is, whatever the platform? Looking at the number of subscribers and active members.

      I don’t disagree but this is also kind of sad. We’re just recreating the same issue on Reddit of “definitive” subreddits controlled by whichever moderators were there first, and once a mass of people settles there, it becomes virtually impossible for smaller alternatives to grow.

      You’re also basically just telling people to go to whichever community happens to be on Lemmy.world. Which means centralization on one instance, which is the opposite of how this place was sold.

      Edit: Ignore the double comment.

    • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
      29·
      12 hours ago

      Lemmy is developped by hardcore tankies and I don’t want to use their software

      I think the main point about this is that, so far, the development has been completely politically neutral and developers have in no way interfered with any instance having other political opinions.
      So they have been more neutral than Reddit developers even if they are public about their tankies ideas on their personal publications.
      Furthermore, it’s open source, so it could be forked any time if needed, unlike Reddit.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
      13·
      10 hours ago

      Why are you actively against lemmy.world?

      On Reddit you list several alternative instances, and you somehow left us out.

    • Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee
      11·
      13 hours ago

      Because everyone at this point uses Gmail, I prefer to use phone networks as my analogy go to, as usually most people know others with a different carrier

  • Kryptonidas@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    13·
    11 hours ago

    Yeah on Reddit at this point it feels to me by bots for bots. Maybe the bots here are just better but it feels more human.

  • Omgboom@lemmy.zip
    13·
    14 hours ago

    This biggest thing that helped me was putting the app icon in the same spot on my phone as my old reddit app

  • zcd@lemmy.ca
    7·
    13 hours ago

    I switched from Reddit to Lemmy cold turkey, not willing to put up with that user hostile enshitification shiticane reddit was going through. There are a few communities that I really miss (/r/weightroom) but new Lemmy things (/c/tenforward) that give me joy. The Internet is getting pretty shitty but Lemmy is a great small corner of it that’s resistant to much of that fuckery

  • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.clubEnglish
    4·
    12 hours ago

    Good:

    • I can use it for mobile without a first party app.

    Bad

    • There aren’t as many communities here as there were on Reddit.
    • There isn’t that much content as on Reddit. Also, while the meme ratio of content feels the same to Reddit, the non-meme Lemmy content is rather small.
    • Comment conversation seems lacking.
    • Moderation tools are rather limited and heavily dependent on defederation to function.
    • The idea of “start your own” mindset in the design makes community formation just as bad as Reddit. There doesn’t seem to be any tools for a more collaborative approach to running subs or instances.
  • illi@lemm.eeEnglish
    5·
    13 hours ago

    Depends on what you are looking for. I think Lemmy works great and I only really go to reddit when a google search leads me there for something. Though I do miss the niche communities and the “there is a subreddit for everything”.

    Lemmy is also healthier, I used to just scroll through reddit for literal hours, it’s possible to reach an end of sort for the time.

  • 1984@lemmy.today
    4·
    13 hours ago

    I’m here because I like the idea of defederated social media, but I hope there will be further attempts at making even better alternatives.

  • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
    1·
    11 hours ago

    For help on current topics, like how certain things work in a newly released game, I check https://old.reddit.com/ without an account to see what they have.

    For doomscrolling/visiting niche themed subs?
    Lemmy works equally fine, and with a clearer conscience to boot.

    EDIT That said, I do sometimes miss certain hobby subs, such as a Tekken or Toki Pona community.
    There aren’t any active ones last time I checked.

  • Mihies@programming.dev
    21·
    11 hours ago

    Mostly agree with what others said, it’s fine for me.

    Perhaps just a subjective opinion that isn’t bound to technology - I find moderators much more trigger happy when it comes to deletion and even banning.

  • Paradachshund@lemmy.today
    1·
    13 hours ago

    It has a long way to go but it’s a good start. The community is very homogenous right now (maybe excluding some of the mainly politically focused servers). It’s predominantly male tech people right now and it shows in what is active and the general vibes of discussions. My hope is not only for more niche communities to grow, but also for a lot more diversity of interests and of people in general. We need more women’s voices on here for sure. I miss that diversity from reddit. Things have been steadily, if slowly, growing so far from what I can tell, so hopefully over time all this will improve.

  • FrankLaskey@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2121·
    14 hours ago

    As a ‘front page of the internet’ it has been a pretty great replacement for me as it’s where I go each day to just see what’s going on. However, due to the smaller size you do lose a lot of the activity in more niche communities and the sheer volume of posts/comments compared to Reddit. That’s the biggest downside. Still, you also lose the incessant ads/bad UI/UX decisions and ever accelerating late stage capitalism driven enshittification so that’s a big plus.

    • Fuck spez@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      2 hours ago

      There’s also a wide and endlessly customizable variety of web/mobile clients, something reddit will apparently never have again.

      e: Federation is pretty cool, too.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
      4·
      13 hours ago

      However, due to the smaller size you do lose a lot of the activity in more niche communities and the sheer volume of posts/comments compared to Reddit.

      That also leads to a lack of diversity of opinions.

      • curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        3·
        5 hours ago

        Same as reddit when it was new.

        I’d actually say Lemmy feels larger over the same timeframe, but that’s just sticking my thumb up in the air sort of measurement.

        The problem with growth is that too much, and it ends up trolls and bots making up the majority, and too little growth means it withers on the vines.

        With federation (and the ability to defederate), I think the ideal ground can be found. We’ll see though!

    • Carnelian@lemmy.world
      83·
      13 hours ago

      Yeah, I love it and actually prefer it to my old reddit experience for general browsing.

      What isn’t quite there yet is the ability to like, sit down all day and scroll and post in a community dedicated to my current hyperfixation of the week. Be it guitar maintenance, some indie game, or whatever.

      But reddit also didn’t have that when I started using it. Excited to hang here and watch the garden grow

      • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        13 hours ago

        But reddit also didn’t have that when I started using it.

        reddit also didn’t have to compete with reddit.

        • gdog05@lemmy.world
          34·
          13 hours ago

          No but it was competing with Digg and Slashdot until Digg screwed the pooch. It’s been a while, but reddit really owes its size and popularity to Digg 2.0 and the fiasco of bad decisions driven by investors.

          • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
            10·
            12 hours ago

            I’m talking mostly about the vibrant niche communities the comment above mentioned. That all happened well after the Digg and slashdot stuff. Niche communities grew on reddit relatively unchallenged.

            Sure, reddit could have a similar meltdown to Digg, but I don’t think it’s a forgone conclusion. Social media has inertia. The bigger a platform is is the harder it is to lose people, because the mass is the feature.

          • Plum@lemmy.world
            9·
            13 hours ago

            I came to reddit from fark, before the digg migration or exodus or whatnot. There was also stumbleupon, and the others are all lost to me.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          5·
          7 hours ago

          Some of us old folks remember when it had to compete with Digg.

          A far more popular competitor that made some unpopular decisions and lost their user base to reddit.

      • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
        12·
        13 hours ago

        “can’t scroll all day”

        I keep saying that’s a positive thing for other productivity, but sadly, that’s not happening for me. Turns out, I want to sit and bum just as much as I always did before. I’m more likely to actually read articles, but I know meta gets more screen time now. As you said, lemmy doesn’t have those full niche communities. I know, sacrilege to admit around here.

      • Lawdoggo@lemmy.world
        3·
        8 hours ago

        I’m sure this gets repeated on Lemmy all the time, but I feel like the quality of Reddit posts, even in niche communities about guitar maintenance or whatever, has really gone downhill in the past 10 years or so.

        This might come off as mean, but I’ve noticed a significant dumbing-down in terms of what people contribute to Reddit communities but also what people expect to be spoon-fed by those communities. And it’s all presented as this sort of democratization of hobbyist knowledge, where it’s every hobbyist’s duty to educate newcomers on all of the absolute basics and persuade them of why they should care about any of it.

        Maybe this is just a side effect of Reddit recommending subreddits to non-subscribers and pushing to become a Facebook-type service for “regular” people - after all, that’s how they make the line go up.

        I still prefer old-school forums, which tend to be more insular, less accessible, and expect you to arrive with a modicum of understanding or at least RTFM first. To be blunt, I miss the days when the internet was primarily for geeks.

  • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    49·
    11 hours ago

    Yes for me it’s absolutely a viable alternative. It’s still small and that has pros and cons. The overall quality of discourse is high because it’s a fairly hip crowd that has found Lemmy and joined. Feels more like the early days of the social web, before social media shat the bed. But being small has cons too. Some communities just aren’t here, and a lot of the ones here are small and less active. But there’s absolutely a viable base here that can grow over time. I’m glad that the internet figured this out because we were too dependent on Reddit before - it had totally consumed all concepts of online community and that was okay before the enshittification got into high gear. Lemmy from its inception is structurally designed not to go down that path. So spend time here. Share it. Help it grow. Start a niche sub and feed it.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
    302·
    11 hours ago

    No. Reddit has a userbase that allows it to be all things to everyone.

    Lemmy has a userbase that allows it to be a pretty good linux disscussion forum.

    Once you venture away from technology, its crickets. There’s a community here specifically for the Cleveland Guardians. It’s dead quiet. The Guardians are even in the ALDS right now…granted they’re down 0-2 in the best of 7 series…but the ONLY post since they started the playoffs, is me asking why the community was so dead. That topic has 0 replies despite being posted days ago. On reddit, I wouldn’t have even needed to make that post, because there would be topics on almost every minute thing the Guardians have done right, and wrong, since the playoffs began.

    And then I’d get heckled for saying that Ketchup is the hot dog derby champion. Now and forever! But on here? Nothin…