cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19004972
Let’s be honest, the real reason Lemmy build most of its traffic is because of Reddit users. But the thing is, outside of the mass exodus in the west that too from the PC era.. people discover and join Reddit not because it’s another social media like Facebook or Twitter that people need to reserve their usernames on like a brand or celebrity but because Google Search is kinda… actually absolute trash by SEO and machine learning crawlers.
Most of the world (I am from India btw, hello~) join or even discover reddit because they’re trying to search for actual solutions, recommendations, advice or even reviews by actual experienced people without having to go through another YouTuber which can stem from troubleshooting a router, finding an actual FOSS option or seeking immediate solutions to the recent CrowdStrike fiasco for example. After having to visit reddit every time whenever using a search engine including for education to career advice, I ended up directly signing up with reddit a decade ago.
Recently, Reddit even restricted its search results to Google only in a business partnership meaning those using Bing, DuckDuckGo to Ecosia or even SearchGPT wouldn’t be able to access Reddit answers anymore. Say, if someone searches for how to block ads on chrome as example - Solutions like uBlock Origin come into existence and continue to exist because of the combined community in Reddit that Lemmy is trying to preserve.
Unlike others, am not saying Lemmy would be dead but it would be pretty much like Discord-Telegram or Tumblr instead of wiping Reddit or correcting Facebook. Reddit is not something you discover from word-of-mouth or join from peer pressure unlike other social media which is even truer for Lemmy but because it actually helps and is useful to people.
Lemmy can’t be taking the path of 𝕏 (Alone Mask’s Twitter) but any of the good platforms were before the Enshittification with Facebook’s way~
There are MANY reasons that Lemmy won't replace Reddit.....the list is almost endless, with each individual reason not being a hurdle on its own that can't be solved. However the combined number of problems is just mind blowing.
There is one chief problem that sums up all the little problems quite nicely. It's the Fediverse culture. It's somehow a platform that is designed to be open and free, but because of the userbase comes off as a walled garden. If you're not a programmer, or a linux user, or have techie interests, it's not the platform for you. And in order to even be comparible to reddit, it has to be a platform for everyone.
As it stands though, Lfmmy is a disjointed, unorganized mess that if you aren't part of their clique, you're not welcome. If you say anything bad about linux, or star trek, or github, you get downvoted to hell. Ask me how I know.
Oh, and for the record, linux is ALSO a confusing hot mess for the average person. But until linux developers accept this, and make a linux distro that is as easy to understand as windows, it's userbase will remain something akin to a rounding error for windows userbase numbers. And I'm saying that as someone who's remaining on Windows 7, because everything since has been hot garbage.
People said the exact same thing about reddit being only good for technology enthusiasts and porn in the early days.
In my experience that is just how it goes on the internet. Nerds, furries, and porn collectors, are the early adopters for most places. The normies follow along years later.