It’s almost exactly a copy of reddit issues but most people that use reddit haven’t heard about it.
FOSS has a reputation for poor UX, and not for nothing either. Users who value slick, easy experiences tend to drift towards corporate software for basically all software solutions because corporate solutions can use money and the corporate hierarchical chain-of-command to respond to user requests faster than open-source self-organizing governance systems.
Amongst stated reasons, “signing up” is more difficult here. Its not as straightforward a process and content isn’t as spoon fed to you as other platforms. The tech literacy needed to get here isn’t high, but as I learned the average tech literacy is abysmal.
About 10ish years ago when I was 14, I helped some people print something. They tried printing something from a computer plugged into the printer, an error popped up saying “printer not connected”. I thought, thr printer must be, yknow disconnected. Some 6 people had gatherd trying to troubleshoot this but were stumped. I pointed out the error message that kept coming up, didn’t click. I followed the cables from the pc to the printer, it was disconnected, I plugged it in and reported back. They where stumped on how I possibly knew what was wrong or how to fix it.
I am not good with technology, but im good enough to know im not good with technology. I have found most people, even those younger or same age tend to not be tech literate.
Finding the application and filling it out for any random federated instance may seem like nothing but it requires an ammount of literacy many Americans dont have.
Reddit is bigger, more established, and Lemmy is smaller and more unknown. As reddit gets worse Lemmy will get bigger.
Because it’s not a website. It’s a connected network of sites that requires a bit of a learning curve to really use.
Reddit removes (or at least did at one point) any lemmy links or posts trying to get people to switch to Lemmy.
I wonder if other platforms do the same.
Because in my opinion people are used to reddit, and is the biggest one, baiscally everyone else is there, why changing for a platform where you have evem to choose " an what? An instance?"), with a fraction of the users.
I stopped using reddit after the api rules changes, i quit twiitter as sson as that nazi guy bought it.
The main socials I use are mastodon and lemmy.
How many of my friends are on madtodon? 1 or 2, how many of them are active there? 0. And i think my nbers are even higher than wjat i think they should be because most of my friemds works in the IT
People unfortunately just wants everything quickly, without hassle, and are not prone to change.
A question on reddit? Probably you’ll get an answer in few hours. On lemmy? You are luckynif you’ll get one.
I have a small crafting page, that I’m trying to spread using only mastodon, it’s much harder. These are the reasons I think.
And most people don’t even care about the content of if their timeline is 85% ads and suggested pages.
They will just scroll. Algorithms are shitty, but who cares. Everyone is there…
There’s only so many Linux furries on the planet
As long as it stays semi-obscure, the powers that be won’t notice it much so maybe it’s a blessing and not a curse. Reddit didn’t start as a shithole, you know. 😕
The powers that be have had their eyes on us for a few years already. Previously. Previously. Previously.
Yikes. Well, let’s hope we’re low on the list…
The network effect. It’s big enough that small forums get enough posts to stay active which keeps more people using it.
For example Lemmy has a 3d printer forum that has a few posts a week. Reddit has forums not just for 3d printing but for every specific model of printer and each gets a much activity as Lemmy’s generic forum.
If I’m searching for something, Google will show Reddit content but not Lemmy because there isn’t an answer on Lemmy.
Among other reasons, there’s no marketing budget.
Too bad because this is a really great site
Mostly because it is a pain in the ass to use.
because reddit actively prevents promotion of the fediverse and its platforms.
if you want to help, convince an entire sub to move their community to the fediverse. we need all the people we can to realize they do not need reddits walled garden.
also, keep in mind lemmy.world is one site of hundreds and only 1 of dozens of platforms that intercommunicate. different platforms offer different features.
im using https://moist.catsweat.com/ which runs the mbin platform. no lemmy involved, but i can see and respond do your post. check out https://fedidb.com/
for example heres my interface hovering your account shows something like karma and includes downvotes;
shh, popularity will make it worse
Its hard to break into peoples minds with no advertising budget.We can’t tell people on reddit about Lemmy because reddit bans your account.
Lemmy got a ton of traffic after the api black out and it did an incredible Job at retaining a lot of those users. There were 200k active users and Lemmy was much more unstable at the time. Active users did fall off as expected but 50k stayed for 2 years. Thats great in my opinion. If we had another migration wave I reckon the retention would be even higher.
For someone to switch from reddit to Lemmy three things need to happen
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They need to know it exists
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They need to dislike reddit or centralised corporate controlled social media on an ideological level.
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They need something disruptive to happen. Either a ban or a change they dont like.
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In my experience, people will move with their interests.
I’ve been using reddit for probably 10-15 years. I used to send links to my wife(then girlfriend), but she never used reddit.
In the last year she made a reddit account after moving off of tiktok.
Now I’m on Lemmy pretty much full time because I prefer smaller communities and more specific topics, also less normies.
Trying to browse reddit is like talking with boomers and AI now. No thanks.
