No Stupid Questions

First lemmy post!

Speaking solely wrt Lemmy, I think what's going to happen is we won't get the "brand recognition" of the technology like what Reddit has had. But, we'll probably see instances get closer to that sort of broader familiarity. So someone might not exactly identify as a lemmy user, but maybe as a Beehaw user.

Anecdotally, I had to try a couple of times to fully "get in" to a Lemmy instance because I didn't know that the hell I was doing. I had tried using gerboa as my client but couldn't understand why I couldn't log in or register on an instance. Then I tried again using liftoff, and it kind of clicked more easily.

Maybe email felt like this in the early 00's? I knew what I could do with an email address (e.g. sign up for MSN and AIM), but I had no idea how to get an email address until I had my siblings walk me through it. I think if any instance can pull off a killer onboarding experience, they'll become the Bandaid, Jello, Kleenex, etc of Lemmy.

Lemmy? Maybe. Mastodon? Not a chance.

Lemmy functions perfectly as a Reddit replacement and only adds a mild amount of complexity on top of using Reddit. Mastodon is only similar to Twitter’s use case if you’ve had a few beers and are squinting.

I doubt it would ever get to a full replacement, but that's fine. It doesn't have to become the new Facebook to still be competent and successful in it own right.

By their nature, both Lemmy and Mastodon will be unlikely to have the same kind of reach, simply because they have the added complication of Federation and all of that on top of everything, which complicates things a bunch.

You also have some decent competitors starting up, which would also split things. Lemmy is competing with Reddit, and the similar services, like Kbin/Threads/Tildes.

Sure, the competition is a bit less direct for sites that Lemmy Federates with, but it's still going to split the user base in some way.

Lemmy also has a few technical hiccoughs and other issues that get in the way of it really becoming popular as it is now. Lemmy.world, pretty much the biggest instance around, suffers from several issues where the code-base simply wasn't designed for the sheer volume of users and activity that they're seeing.

Lemmy's devs would have to go and fix those problems before it could sustainably become a mainstream app.

No. As long as people keep using it I think it can grow enough that people can use Lemmy as their primary app. But it'll never become mainstream enough.

We underestimate how technically ignorant the majority of people are, as soon as it hits the point of no official app and which instance to join people give up.

The only way I can see it working is it they prioritised their own official instance, made it default on an 'official' app so it's just as easy as Reddit or Twitter, but in small text allow people to change instance.

After seeing several places get mainstream, the last of which being Reddit: I wouldn't want it to. That's when everything starts to suck. Stay niche. Stay cool.

Perhaps a better question...do we want it to?

It will definitely take a while to catch on to the public (if ever) considering the "complexities" with signing up for an account.

You can't just "Sign in with Google" or something like that, plus there isn't one centralized sign up button you have to pick whichever instance you prefer, which to most is to "complicated".

The average user does not care enough about the reasons that drive people off the mainstream social media - in short, they're idiots. So, no, these won't replace the shitty mainstream solutions, because most people just have no clue that they really should.

Lemmy, yes. Mastodon, no. I could make no sense of mastodon and found nothing of interest.

No, and they never have to.

What are the "complexities" people are talking about when they say that lemmy won't catch on? Yes there were some stability issues and bugs in the last couple of days but that's just a bit of growing pains. I don't see how lemmy is harder to use than reddit. Like you google "lemmy", first link is https://join-lemmy.org/, you click Join a Server and then you see "You can access all content in the lemmyverse from any server/instance." so then you just pick one of the instances and create an account.

"hope"? Yes. "believe"? No. But I think it will pave the way for the next step.

Tbh, Lemmy is big enough for me. I've always been more into the comments than the posts, I just like posts to set up context. Lemmy has plenty of comment discussion going around in the communities I like that I'm satisfied. More content would not be a bad thing of course, I'm just wary of the implications of the Fediverse being mainstream.

All this talk about “well, the UX”, “if the servers can”, “but the big companies”, bla, bla, bla. I’m here right now. There is nothing else as far as I’m concerned. Twitter and Reddit are dead to me and I absolutely love Mastodon and Lemmy. I quit Facebook many years ago and never found an alternative for that, outside of starting a shared photo group on iOS with my family.

You better start believing in fediverse alternatives…you’re in one.

Lemmy/kbin and other reddit alternatives, I think they have a higher chance than mastodon, diaspora and other alternatives more focused on "web presence".

Reddit and Lemmy are about threads and posts, stuff that you're supposed to interact with hours, perhaps days, after the initial post, stuff that you're supposed to look for and find later on. Evergreen content

Twitter and Mastodon are about the "right now". Stuff from 3 days ago is a lot less likely to be interacted with, or stay relevant. It needs new content to be consumed on a daily basis, just like Pixelfed (fed insta) or Tiktok. I think that makes Mastodon less likely to remain relevant long term, but what do I know?

Personally, not in the near future. If the process to sign up gets more streamlined along with people not worrying too much about the federation part, then yeah it has a chance. I saw some reddit threads on a post that explains how federation works, and there was a lot of push back because they felt they had needed to understand everything to even use the website.

I think it would be pretty difficult for Lemmy/Mastodon/Kbin to become bigger than for-profit counterparts. For-profit businesses can raise loads of funding and spend all that money on lots of engineers to refine their platforms.

But I do think the fediverse is pushing big tech to alter their platforms. E.g. Meta planning to support ActivityPub in Threads.

No. I've got a bunch of friends who are just as techy and nerdy as I am, and they won't move. "Yeah, Reddit sucks, but I'm not going to change."

They didn't go to Mastodon either, just Bluesky, which infuriates me, as it's just another walled garden.

Belief is the acceptance of a claim without evidence. There is evidence that Lemmy and Mastodon can, with time, replace their centralized counterparts.

So do I believe it? No. I know it can happen though. Will it happen? Definite maybe. First, all the users that are bunched up on three big servers need to learn the painful lesson of how a federated architecture works. It’s in their best interests to find small instances of lemmy and have accounts there. Why, because all the huge instances of lemmy are having trouble staying functional. Lemmy.world has 87,000 users and an uptime of 97%. That means it experiences 11 days of downtime a year. Almost a day per month. Sh.itjust.works has around 10,000 users and a 99% uptime by comparison (still 3 to 4 days a year of downtime). Many smaller instances have 100% uptime. Look for yourself.

Another thing future users (not users yet) need to stop using as an argument (excuse) is, “but if I have an account on a site and it disappears, I lose my account.” Well, first, that’s true of the centralized service you’re using. And don’t talk to me about “too big to fail…” arguments. If there’s one thing Twitter, Reddit, and YoutTube have proven, it’s that you are irrelevant and disposable. They may not vanish, but the long lasting stupid they do for the sake of… I don’t even know what… has led to multiple migrations to distributed environments.

Are distributed environments perfect? No. They ARE improving though. And the fact is, in a distributed environment when one instance enacts something that you don’t feel is in your best interest… You go to another instance. No drama, no fanfare… just move.

I hope not.

Places like Reddit or Twitter become progressively worse as they get more popular.

Besides, Mastodon is not a replacement of Twitter. It has the same UI and look&feel but it's very different. Twitter is basically a place where internet celebrities post and other people comment and share. Mastodon is more like regular chaps hanging out and exchanging opinions.

No. It's just way to complicated to become mainstream. Maybe some instance can become popular enough if they do their marketing right and create a really simple sign up process and just handwave away the entire federalisation that goes on in the background.

Having more users does not (always) mean a good thing... so I hope not. It's good enough as is, thank you very much.