This but about how almost everything about Lemmy is spun as either good, or better than reddit’s equivalent.
Like the other day I saw a post about how Lemmy’s active users were on the decline, trying to claim that was somehow good for Lemmy. Or back when Lemmy had its /r/place copy, there were plenty of people saying it was better than reddit’s. Basically anything about Lemmy that’s somewhat lacking has people desperately trying to defend it as actually superior.
It borders on delusional at times. Yes Lemmy is good, but reddit is still better in dozens of ways, almost all of them related to user count. And this is coming from one of the people who deleted their reddit account and replaced it with Lemmy cold turkey - I haven’t been back there (except for porn) in almost 8 weeks.
You do know you need an account on the NSFW instances to see the stuff on them right?
I see them just fine without one, but I did allow nsfw on my account when I created it
but reddit is still better in dozens of ways, almost all of them related to user count.
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.
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.
