This is not going to be a blogpost about “Why do people still use Reddit instead of everyone moving to Lemmy?”. I noticed that even with Mastodon users, who already understand and like the advantages of decentralized platforms, the usage of Lemmy is extremely small, and more people use Reddit. Most of them haven’t even heard of Lemmy. To be fair, the Reddit usage also seems to be fairly low.
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I use Lemmy
Reddit seems to be highly algorithmic now, so I think it has more of the “doomscrolling effect” that does accrue a lot of engagement.
Just gonna throw this out there: Lemmy is a bad and dumb name.
- It’s a joke about users being lemmings
- this subtly denegrates the user on every usage
- this implies the app/product itself isn’t that serious and sounds kinda childish
- It’s not a satisfying word from a pronunciation standpoint. How many other company or product names can you think of that end with that
eesound? Reddit, Twitter, Threads, they all end with these conclusive consonant sounds. Lemmy sounds like it’s trailing off while whining. - At best it conjures up images of rat like rodents.
I don’t think you’re wrong but I question how much the name really matters. As a name, Reddit is also kind of confusing until someone explains the pun and has historically been seen as weird. Only reason it’s not weird now is cause it’s popular. The name “lemmy” could just as well see the same happen.
I agree with you here, if people have no problems using Tiktok or Bilibili or Zalando, Lemmy shouldn’t be much worse.
- It’s a joke about users being lemmings
Lemmy, reddit, and other forum type websites are primarily text based. Microblogging and social media are short form and have plenty of pictures and videos, which catches and retains the attention of users more. Their algorithms are also more intense and curated compared to say reddit’s front page which is more generalized to all its users. Forums mean you have to spend time reading and typing while you can doomscroll and press a reaction button on social media and microblogging.
I was on Reddit a long time, it wasn’t always huge. Usenet forums before that. I like following topics, not people, and like hosting communities built around topics but would hate to have “followers” of myself personally, that sounds hellish. So never used Facebook, etc, and don’t even love Mastodon, really.
But apparently this is a minority view?
2/3 of polled Mastodon & co. users use no link aggregator, neither Threadiverse not siloed ones.
Maybe microblogging is good enough for them?
I would say Lemmy has bern growing more rhan pifed. Lemmy is still “new” compared to Reddit. A lot of users like the Reddit UI compared to Lemmy’s barebones (like on Voyager).
The people love algorithms, even if they don’t admit that. Reddit and the other platforms invest a lot of money to make people more addicted, and it works. Lemmy on the other hand… well people quickly engage with lemmy.ml and think what the fuck is this place
In my view, people go to the areas where good content is happening, not different communications architecture.
“nobody”, nearly 50k people.
Asking people on mastodon if they use lemmy also doesn’t make much sense to me. I don’t use mastodon because it’s not threaded, people on mastodon probably don’t use lemmy for a similar reason. I’m not sure how many people use both threaded and unthreaded platforms, but it feels to me like the two layouts attract different people.
Lemmy and Reddit usage are relatively low compared to their respective social media siblings. I’ve always believed the reason is in the difference in how they’re structured. Most other social media is wired around people as the primary structural unit. “Who’s saying what?” Reddit and Lemmy are instead wired around topics. “What are people saying about this?” And I assume the difference in popularity is evidence for how most people themselves are wired.
Social networks live and die by network effects. People don’t use Instagram because it’s the best. They use Instagram because that is where their friends are. Either everybody uses a site, or nobody does.
The UX still has a long way to go.
I’m very tolerant of shitty tech and like a struggle, and even I am often like wtf.
Signed up to piefed.zip the other day, and the default feed is just horrendous
Most users will just quit instead of trying to figure out how to fix it manually.
No proper onboarding
When you onboard onto Reddit it asks interests and points users to subreddits. I don’t think anything like that exists on Lemmy, but could be a good thing for the less tech inclined.
Alexandrite is pretty great
