I guess it’s self explanatory but I keep seeing all this stuff about how everyone is moving from Reddit to lemmy and I’m wondering if anyone knows if that’s really what’s happening. If you have numbers that’s even better.
Thanks!
It’s not a mass exodus. There was a sizeable influx of people from Reddit to Lemmy/kbin, sure, but that’s measured in the (low) hundreds of thousands. Reddit has hundreds of millions of active users.
The reality is it’s not even close to a mass exodus, not yet.
Yeah, but a sizeable increase is still very important. These days, Mastodon, Lemmy and so on have decently sized communities everywhere so that you don’t feel like just talking to yourself and a couple of friends anymore. And that’s kind of a tipping point.
“Mass migrations” happen slowly, anyway. A lot of people are very hesitant to leave big social hubs just because of the value there is in having so many people around. But in the end, you have to. We can’t stay on these proprietary social networks forever. Social networks and communication channels in general need to be non-proprietary, decentralized and open, without the ability of companies manipulating what you see and don’t see. And without risk of losing everything when the one big company falls. It’s a fundamental problem of all proprietary social networks.
While true, I would like to point out who is leaving: The vocal community.
When you see a reddit post and it has 1000 Upvotes and 50 comments, than this means that a couple thousand people saw it, over 1000 votes on it (up and down) and 50 made a comment, and some even commented on a comment. Most people are lurker and are just passive and enjoy the contribution by OP posting it, people curating it by voting for it and giving the topic traction by commenting on it (maybe even provoking another thread of the same topic or adding another thought in another post in the next hours/days or turning it into a meme).
The people, who are leaving - as far I as I see it - are the vocal active people. Not the lurker. So it might not be a mass exodus, but those who are active and vocal about their unhappiness and who are actively searching for alternatives and are now here on Lemmy, are the heart of the buzzing culture of reddit. Those are the ones who bring in new posts, vote actively and comment massively. Not the lurker. So who is left behind on reddit is mostly lurker who are now missing a good part of the active community who commented and voted for them. And I think this is visible on reddit and can accelerate reddits decline.
Its not the mass of the people that is important, but the engaging force that is driving the discourse in a community by being active and vocal.
And I think Lemmy got a good heap of those people.
The Great Digg Migration was way bigger and Digg was never the same after that. If Lemmy gets a couple more big waves from Reddit, it could mean the end for Reddit as it currently is.
I doubt Reddit has hundreds of millions. For ‘big social media’, Reddit was pretty niche until recently. I’d be surprised if they had more than a hundred million.
But that aside, the users that are leaving Reddit are their most important ones. Mods and the people who spent the most time on Reddit. This definitely has the the potential to cause substantial harm to the platform.
White the absolute numbers aren’t so huge, it’s more about the kind of people who are leaving Reddit. Many if those are former mods or people who create a lot if content. I do think this will lead to an appreciable lots in overall quality of Reddit. Not that the quality they’re had been anything to write home about. But the downward trajectory continues.
We could get many users providing useful content thats why I recommend checking out these subs:
Fix problems and errors !techsupport@lemmy.world
Find the best products by Lemmy users reviews !recommendations@lemmy.world
Find the best software options !softwareoptions@lemmy.world
And more (if you know more I will edit to add them)
