only twitter alternatives became somehow popular?
Reddit alternatives too. You have no idea how slow this place was before the Reddit APIcalypse, this place is way more popular than it used to be.
But still it is not reddit before reddit api changes. And probably won’t have a new platform like reddit.
The only reason threads is this popular is because they have the marketing machine of Facebook and billions of dollars.
Plus they have monster hardware to support everything.
The fact that lemmy is where it is is already outstanding.
But still it is not reddit before reddit api changes.
Nor Mastodon is Twitter in any moment of Twitter’s recent history.
Anyway. Regarding your post: it seems to me that the hashtag+short reply system is simply more popular than the community+long reply system. Even then, when compared with the platforms that it competes with, Lemmy’s popularity is proportional to the one of Mastodon and other Twitter alternatives.
Nether one is as popular.
However Mastodon is MUCH easier to use and has better pull as you follow people… If a person was on Twitter and moves to Mastodon you setup a Mastodon and follow them.
However for Lemmy, if you liked a specific subreddit and not everyone left you search for an equivalent and you find 6 plus (IF your instance is federated with a few even for the search to return results) then you try them out and find little interaction in some etc.
TL;DR following people is easier than creating communities that are active.
Actually I’d say it’s the other way around. It’s hard to switch a social network, since it only makes sense to switch if the people you want to follow are also on the new network (The Network Effect).
However, for sites like reddit, it matters less. I don’t care who posts the cute kittens in [email protected], as long as they’re there. Much lower barrier to join. Once a network is primed with good content, the people will come.
More inline with OP: it also helps that there was already a huge exodus from twitter to mastodon a few years back, so they’ve got a bit of a head start.
I would argue normies follow people to new networks. People don’t go seeking out content on lemmy… If you google search stuff you end up with redit content hits not lemmy content hits for nearly every topic.
To move off Twitter, one person will potentially bring hundreds.
To move to Lemmy you need a bunch of people posting useful content…
Auto posting content without discussion also doesn’t seem to stick… I was looking at Lemmit which is mostly bots reposting reddit stuff and there is 0 discussion there.
In my experience people only follow people to new networks when enough other people have made the switch. Try convincing people to use signal or telegram instead of WhatsApp, for example.
To move off twitter, one person will make the journey, find out that most of the people they want to follow (or be followed by) aren’t on mastodon, and go back to twitter.
People don’t actively seek out content on Lemmy (yet). But if they do check it out, they will be more likely to stick around if they feel they don’t miss out on stuff they were used to on reddit.
For some things like text posts and questions, comments / discussion is great. For other, more content based posts like photos, game discounts or adult content, I don’t mind one bit not seeing other people’s comments.
Lemmit is meant to become obsolete in the long run, but it can help prime the network with content that makes it easier to switch over.
Because Eugen has been working on Mastodon much longer. It’s a lot more mature and it had time to get a bunch of real world testing, not to mention withstand some DOS attacks, some hateful trolls, etc etc.
So pretty much every aspect was more mature and easier to use when people started jumping to the lifeboats from Twitter. Lemmy is cool and it’s getting there, but it’s got a ways to go for sure. (The lack of RES hotkeys to navigate, vote, open and close pics, follow links, jump between all and subscribed is purely torture to me at this point!)
Generally it’s apps that provide you just a single endless feed curated by an algorithm that people end up being into.
Reddit has always been more on the “advanced” side of social media. There’s moderation, it’s categorized by topics and communities, etc.
Most people really are just trend followers and shitposters hoping to be seen.
Most people really are just trend followers and shitposters hoping to be seen.
Witness me!
I think a big part is also the relentlessness of Musk’s antics creating a constant wave of people leaving for something else.
what data do are using to support this thesis?
fedidb
it looks fine to me.
kbin and Lemmy are 3 and 4 for fastest brisket growing servers.
Twitter has gone over much more changes in the past year than reddit.
- bought
- fired almost all employees
- lost ads partners
- had PR mishaps
- now rate limiting affecting ever user and ads at the same time
- now threads is out
reddit really isn’t really changing the experience for most people but Twitter is.
also more mastodon users also affects us too since you can interact with Lemmy on mastodon so it benefits the network
@niszogen IDK if I’d consider it just a Twitter alternative. From Mastodon I can follow any Lemmy communities on federated servers and see the same posts that I can see in my WefWef app on my @[email protected] account.
how do you follow Lemmy communities on mastodon
The hardest part was getting used to a different type of UI. I never used Twitter much but I was a Redditor for 10 years.
@niszogen All I have to do is know which instance, the community is that I want to follow, is on. For example @[email protected] was the first option that came up when I typed Aww into my Explore tab on Mastodon but I could also follow @[email protected] if I wanted to.
oh… thanks
