this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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Do we at this point have any substantial data on just how many users Reddit actually lost due to this?

Any resources would be greatly appreciated.

As a sidenote, I'll add that they certainly lost my account the second I couldn't use RiF anymore.

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[–] Cyna@feddit.uk 55 points 1 year ago (4 children)

https://the-federation.info/platform/73

The numbers do speak for themselves.

While it's not huge, compared to reddits numbers, it's a massive boost to lemmy. A lot of those leaving are more likely more active users. It's bootstrapped Lemmy into a viable platform. It now has a critical mass of users to generate content.

[–] moup@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The Active Users Ratio graph is not filling me with hope - if I’m reading it correctly there isn’t increased activity, just increased sign ups.

[–] JustARegularNerd@aussie.zone 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I want to comment and submit content, I just feel like I don't have anything of value to share. That tends to be why I lurk. Not sure if that's the case for most other lurkers.

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[–] CustodialTeapot@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Total users have sky rocketed and iirc like 90% of users/people who log in to say vote, save and subscribe to communities are lurkers. Hell, I've been "lurking" since I've signed up.

Since there's such a spike in users, and prior to the Reddit death, most users were power users. I'm surprised that the active user ratio didn't decrease. (My 90% lurker figure would give a 0.1 ratio). The fact it near increased by .05 instead is wild.

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[–] Mammal@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year ago (2 children)

At least three: You, me, and some person who built this platform.

Disclaimer: It's entirely possible two of the above individuals are bots.

[–] CaptainBlagbird@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Wait, could I be a bot too?? 😧

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[–] kromem@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Well you can take the knowledge that Lemmy.world grew 60% following it, look at current numbers for the server, and know at least around 60% of that number has shifted some of their media habits away from Reddit.

But the full picture is unknowable outside Reddit corporate.

Probably more than spez was anticipating though...

[–] kiddblur@lemm.ee 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But probably not enough to make a bit immediate impact on Reddit. I’m more interested in long term impact, seeing if the people who left were big contributors, or just mostly lurkers

[–] puppy@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Don't underestimate lurkers. They play a big role by upvoting, downvoting and reporting inappropriate content. They are the invisible force that keeps a website healthy and sane.

[–] FranklinsBeard@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] Davidvanb@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago
[–] hskrnut@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

By definition lurkers don't do any of that. A lurker literally just looks at stuff

That user you described is still a contributor, you could perhaps call them a curator or something but they aren't a lurker.

[–] MadWorks@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Not only Lemmy but other instances and other sites as well. I know squabbles grew by quite a bit, beehaw grew, and so did Tildes. But unless we were able to gather information from everywhere, it's impossible to know. What is heartening is that we do know that it was not an insignificant amount.

[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think it's a good chunk but not enough to outright kill the site.

The shitshow that was Spez's AMA certainly drove away a few users, but I think many more were hoping that they'd dial back the API changes at the eleventh hour to allow third-party apps to at least coexist.

What AMA? It was nothing more than 3-4 pre written comments that didn’t answer anything.

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[–] Crampon@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago

I quit reddit on my phone, and I'm never looking back. I'm still browsing Reddit with RES on my PCs though. So a drastic reduction in use.

Reddit feels like different now compared to a week ago. Browsing a new fresh site opened my eyes to how shit r/all are. Even with blocked subreddits a new hate fueled subreddit emerges every week.

[–] Quentinp@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

No real way to tell, but I don't think it would be immediately noticeable on Reddit. Like the satisfying "we killed reddit" probably isn't going to happen. On the other hand, being here clearly have discoverd the Fediverse as replacement, so IMO it doesn't matter what happens to Reddit now. (Not to say the drama/any issues Reddit ends up with won't be endlessly entertaining)

[–] mustardman@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Like the satisfying “we killed reddit” probably isn’t going to happen.

I used to think this until all of the recent blows they have had, such as the IAmA losses and Microsoft withdrawing their Minecraft support. With advertisers withdrawing and users leaving, I think they are going to have problems covering operating expenses in the near term that could lead to an implosion due to lack of funds.

Before all this started, Fidelity's Reddit investment was devalued pretty heavily and they have had profitability issues. Tech companies in general are having investor problems due to interest rates so Reddit have problems is going to really scare away any risk-adverse investors. They have proven they cannot control their user base (which is good news for users) which scares advertisers away from content unfriendly to their interests. They just doubled their employees from like 1000 to 2000 in the past couple of years, which just adds astronomically to their operating expenses.

I think they make about $500 million in revenue and are still in the red. Even minor changes to this expense/income ratio can cause issues that make them suddenly insolvent with no one to bail them out.

[–] Necronomicommunist@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What's the Minecraft thing? I'm not on Reddit any more so missed that bit.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] puppy@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Good opportunity for them to host a separate instance with a Microsoft domain. That will contribute even more to their legitimately.

[–] sulungskwa@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I definitely think getting interested in the fediverse is a long game. Think the death of Facebook. It was a slow burn between 2016 and 2020, involving lots of different communities moving at different times for different reasons

[–] Quentinp@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

But...Facebook isn't dead. I mean it's dead to me, but it's still going quite strong.

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[–] Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You probably can't judge the loss in user count anyway. 99% of the users never actively contribute anything, not even upvotes or so.

[–] NoisyFlake@feddit.de 16 points 1 year ago (12 children)

I tend to disagree. Most of the users that actually cared enough about the API changes to make the switch to Lemmy were powerusers. I think most casual lurkers use the official app anyway and didn’t care about the protests.

[–] Mushroom444@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Hell naw, I’m a lurker (on Reddit). I used Apollo because I’m an IT guy and I can’t stand ads.

I feel like I actually should start interacting here though, because I’m not being over spoken / silenced by AI bots and algorithms

Edit: I am already halfway to my number of updoots on my Reddit account of 7 years… it’s working! Be the change you want to see!

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[–] Platomus@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I had an 8 year old account with a few hundred thousand karma, deleted it on July 1st once BaconReader went down.

Switching to Lemmy makes me want to participate even more and hopefully foster more people to join.

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[–] mstrk@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Hey, I'm a lurker and I used the official app (un-installed it the day I created an account on fedi, it was shit anyway). There's still a moral ground attached to this. I don't browse reddit anymore, and I did a final post in a niche community that I really like, a couple of weeks or so, in an attempt to lead them here, because I do miss that community and I contributed more there. There's a bunch of good reasons people could stop using reddit, but imho what matters is that we build our communities in fedi and just forget about what happens to reddit.

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[–] Fauzruk@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is impossible to know. It is more important to see what Lemmy is getting more so than what Reddit is loosing. At least on the fediverse the number is realistic and not something for the shareholders.

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[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] lando55@vlemmy.net 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] Windexhammer@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think the critical question is not so much how many users it lost, but how many contributing users? Given the majority of Reddit users are lurkers, you could easily lose half the content by losing only the top 5% of contributing users...

[–] sil3ntki11@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Very good point and this place seems like it's getting a lot of the content contributors...

[–] whileloop@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

And those 5% are probably most affected by the loss of third party apps and such.

[–] Nikls94@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have Wefwef now. I’m not lost, just on substitute.

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[–] notapantsday@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I didn't fully quit reddit, but I'm going to Lemmy first and foremost and rarely go back to reddit for very specific communities. My reddit usage dropped by 90+% probably, but I'm not completely gone.

I'm sure the same is true for many other users as well, so simply counting the number of (active) users then and now won't get even close to the actual loss in traffic and participation.

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[–] DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 year ago

Sadly we won't know the amount of users Reddit lost with Reddit being willing to publicly admit how much they fucked up. Through info on user increase on Lemmy we'll get an idea but it doesn't mean those new users have completely stopped using Reddit.

[–] peter@feddit.uk 8 points 1 year ago

Looking at the stats for the subreddits I moderate, I can't see any actual change in unique views since the apps shutdown

[–] Yoz@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Eventually but at the moment most users are using both Lemmy and Reddit but soon the quality of content will shift from reddit to Lemmy and that will be the end of reddit. Post quality memes, questions and answers to kill reddit quickly

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Post quality memes, questions and answers to kill reddit quickly

Uhhh, about that...

*hides beans*

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[–] hungry_freaks_daddy@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I hadn’t saved a meme from Reddit in a looooong time.

Joined lemmy July 1st and have been filling my phone with memes.

This place seriously reminds me of old Reddit. We don’t need a huge influx of users. Maybe just a few more but it’s pretty much perfect as is.

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[–] gooddaytodayhere@vlemmy.net 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don’t think Reddit is imploding overnight but there seems to be an element of death by a thousand cuts happening. I’ve left and burned out three old usernames and over ten years worth of posts/comments. I’ll still use it to find answers to things but increasingly over the last month the threads are peppered with deleted comments and gaps

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[–] dhork@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's going to be hard to tell definitively, because so much traffic on the major platforms like Reddit are bots. As a percentage of overall traffic, the reduction may only be a few percentage points.

But all that traffic that is leaving are from Actual Humans. Humans who cared enough about their interactions to have preferences about how they engaged with Reddit. In a few years, Reddit will just be a bunch of bots talking to each other.

[–] BlinkAndItsGone@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

One of the founders of Reddit mentioned in an interview a while back that it was all bots when it started, to give the illusion of being populated when it was too new to have any users except the people who worked on it. From bots it came, and to bots it will return. The circle of life.

[–] LoafyLemon@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (8 children)

It's only been three days since the API change. Give it a month and we might have a bit of usable data, but for precise information, we'll need to wait a few months or even up to a year.

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[–] lntl@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 1 year ago

If there is a change, Reddit shouldn't share the real numbers. Would be bad for business.

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