Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
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It's not though, because it's all locked away through an interface that doesn't work for many people. And it doesn't matter how good what's on the other side is, if there is a barrier that ensures I won't ever be on the other side.
It goes both ways. There are ways Lemmy is better than reddit, even in this early stage - and the default interface is 100% one of those. Default reddit is getting more and more like facebook these days.
But the lack of users on lemmy really hurts it. Of the 20 posts on my current All page, 13 of them have 0 comments. 5 of the remaining 7 have fewer than 5 comments.
I really think Lemmy has the potential to eventually surpass reddit - but I by no means at all think it's even close to that point yet. While it still has a long way to go software-wise, growing its userbase is by far the biggest hurdle it has to overcome. And as long as reddit keeps getting worse I think we'll get there.
I did get your point that reddit's strengths don't really matter if it's wrapped in a package that's unusable. I just disagree that that means Lemmy is automatically better in every way.
I am also not overly into this chat - because of what I said not what you said. I considered deleting my original message because it was more negative than I care to be, but left it because people had already replied. I'd really rather not get sucked into a chain of messages where all I'm doing is complaining about Lemmy.
There are plenty of users. The issue is they're not all working together on the same content.
That's the really the issue with federation as a solution for Reddit. Reddit was what it was because of a single, shared userbase all commenting and voting on the same things. Like /r/place, it was one canvas, all hands contributed to it.
The fediverse was sold to us as working the same way but the results have been the opposite. It's fragmented with invisible walls.
While I agree that federation currently works against Lemmy, and I've written to that effect before (Though I think most such issues can eventually be fixed on the software side), I still disagree that there are plenty of users. The entire active userbase of Lemmy is still fewer people than are subscribed to /r/Montana. /r/AskReddit alone currently has more unique people on it at the time of this reply than Lemmy has had in the last month.
So that's our problem: We're trying to take the amount of people who might browse /r/AskReddit at its peak on a Wednesday, and using just them trying to rebuild everything on reddit. The userbase here is spread too thin. Federation is artificially spreading them even thinner, but even without it we'd still be desperately in need of new users.
anyone know if you can make a post there asking about Lemmy - I feel like reddit mods would remove it, you know?
That's just being obtuse. Reddit does, in fact, have better content. You wouldn't say a restaurant has shitty food because you don't like the decor.
I'm not denying that. I'm saying it doesn't matter, because I can't access it except through an app that I actively dislike using