Counterpoint: There still is too little activity within communities that aren’t tech related for me to say that it’s the perfect size. I think we still need a good number of non-tech focused users here. Also, the jokes are stale, but reddit has that issue too.
Yeah this is the real issue. Reddit’s mass of niche communities, easy way to find them, and mod tools like matchday bots for sports and others really make reddit more appealing to a general market. I’ve seen users on Reddit comment on Lemmy and the consensus was “it’s a cool alternative but too small” and I kinda agree.
Another massive hurdle is how entwined Reddit has become with Google searches. 9/10 any technical or research prompt I search has a log of Reddit posts with answers. This is no doubt the product of Reddit owners partnering with Google. I imagine it would be a real challenge for the Fediverse to replicate.
I don’t know if it’s just about reddit partnering with Google. It’s undeniable that years and years of enthusiasts having niche but public conversations about all manner of things makes it a gold mine for any search engine. People organically were adding “reddit” to their searches for years to find these conversations, way before it was a mechanism of avoiding garbage AI and SEO slop.
I still use reddit for this very reason. lemmy is great for me to learn about privacy, FOSS, and decentralization, but I have to use reddit to learn about Vermicomposting, which high quality leather boot I should invest in, and for niche subculture snark.
I’ve been helping some people bridge their Bluesky to mastodon by telling them that if/when they get pushed out of Bluesky due to enshittification, they will love having a mastodon presence already building. And if people use both, they can at least know there’s a back up of all their posts (great if you know any comedians or political advocates who are upset when they lose jokes/posts after being harassed and banned).
Yeah, this site is basically a news aggregator with a side of tech memes. None of the niche communities we used to interact with exist, and no matter how many times someone says “just make them lol” it’s just too small to support a Memphis Grizzlies or a cat mlem or an alt-biking scene
Counterpoint: There still is too little activity within communities that aren’t tech related for me to say that it’s the perfect size. I think we still need a good number of non-tech focused users here. Also, the jokes are stale, but reddit has that issue too.
Yeah this is the real issue. Reddit’s mass of niche communities, easy way to find them, and mod tools like matchday bots for sports and others really make reddit more appealing to a general market. I’ve seen users on Reddit comment on Lemmy and the consensus was “it’s a cool alternative but too small” and I kinda agree.
Another massive hurdle is how entwined Reddit has become with Google searches. 9/10 any technical or research prompt I search has a log of Reddit posts with answers. This is no doubt the product of Reddit owners partnering with Google. I imagine it would be a real challenge for the Fediverse to replicate.
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I don’t know if it’s just about reddit partnering with Google. It’s undeniable that years and years of enthusiasts having niche but public conversations about all manner of things makes it a gold mine for any search engine. People organically were adding “reddit” to their searches for years to find these conversations, way before it was a mechanism of avoiding garbage AI and SEO slop.
I still use reddit for this very reason. lemmy is great for me to learn about privacy, FOSS, and decentralization, but I have to use reddit to learn about Vermicomposting, which high quality leather boot I should invest in, and for niche subculture snark.
I’ve been helping some people bridge their Bluesky to mastodon by telling them that if/when they get pushed out of Bluesky due to enshittification, they will love having a mastodon presence already building. And if people use both, they can at least know there’s a back up of all their posts (great if you know any comedians or political advocates who are upset when they lose jokes/posts after being harassed and banned).
Yeah, this site is basically a news aggregator with a side of tech memes. None of the niche communities we used to interact with exist, and no matter how many times someone says “just make them lol” it’s just too small to support a Memphis Grizzlies or a cat mlem or an alt-biking scene
Lemmy, what is the best way to prevent myself from pooping for three days?