SimilarWeb has just released traffic estimates for June. According to these estimates, Reddit’s traffic has seen a 3.36% month-over-month decrease.
For comparison, here’s how traffic has changed for other popular social networking websites:
- Discord.com: +0.51%
- Twitter.com: -1.65%
- Instagram.com: -1.35%
- Facebook.com: -3.18%
- TikTok.com: +0.77%
- Pinterest.com: -2.27%
- Youtube.com: -2.02%
Source: https://www.similarweb.com/website/reddit.com/#overview
That seems small given the number of Redditors here
To lemmy I’d guess the numbers seem a lot bigger. But by reddits standards yea its a small percentage.
refuse to use the default reddit app so here I am. I miss rif but lemmy is filling the void at least.
And lots of those users probably aren’t real.
But there’s a distribution curve. 10-15% of a user base is super super valuable because they create all the content. If they lost 3-5% of that segment, that would be a real problem.
Yeah, the vast majority of users don’t contribute at all. Not post, not comment, not even upvote. They come only to consume.
Then you get the segment of people who contribute a bit, but not so much, and then you have the golden 1% of powerusers that are active.
That’s why, yes, 3 party app users are just a small chunk off the greater Reddit pie - they are more likely to belong to the segment of Reddit users that actually create content for the side. Posting, commenting, up and downvoting, actively engaging.
The number of users here is pretty minuscule compared to the Reddit userbase
I know more people who are just fine with using the official app than I know people who hate it. It’s kinda sad.
Seems like the backlash was loud but ultimately nowhere strong enough.
Depends on what the goal was. If the goal was to have so many people leave reddit that it dies, then yeah. Nowhere near strong enough for that (and I don’t think that was ever going to happen).
If the goal was to get enough people motivated to make an alternative (like this one or kbin or whatever) viable, then I think it was extremely effective. Prior to June, these spaces didn’t have enough content and discussion to be entertaining for me personally. But I deleted my reddit account on June 30th, and I haven’t once regretted that or gone back to the site because Lemmy has been enough
It was strong enough that Lemmy/kbin now has a large enough userbase to be an active community and to work out the bugs in the software. We’ve got a strong base to grow from now.
People will keep looking for alternatives to Reddit as its own enshittification continues (either by things like eliminating old.reddit or just the degradation of the community) and people who’ve never used a link aggregator/discussion site will continue to sign up. It’s also not just Reddit. With a bit of modification, a version of Lemmy could replace question-and-answer sites like StackOverflow. An embedded version of Lemmy could be used in place of Disqus. Sites that currently maintain their own discussion thread systems could use a Lemmy instance instead.
Any place with threaded discussions now has the option for a federated alternative.
That’s true, but also bear in mind most of reddit’s active monthly users are barely interacting with the site (e.g., through clicking in off a search result, or following a link).
The average user engagement per day is in the single digit minutes, and the average post / comment count per day is <1… I know I used reddit a lot more than that.
So as the numbers drop further in July, consider that the share of highly engaged, highly active, content creating users has likely dropped by far more.
Quality is more important than quantity. The people who left Reddit are more likely to be engaged and create content. Most people on Reddit just consume content. If nobody is there to create any, those will leave too.
Would be interesting to see engagement metrics as well.
Yeah, even just 3% could be very meaningful because it could be a lot of content creators who hopped ship.
And judging by how much content we have here on Lemmy - yeah, I’m thinking Reddit lost a bunch of valuable users and will only get worse with time.
We did it, Red-- I mean, Fediverse!
Would be hilarious if they decide to federate after this shitshow as “Reddiverse”.
With the speed at which they’ve implemented other features, won’t be for years.
On the one hand, this doesn’t seem like a lot. But on the other, this is just for June. A lot of people left or drastically cut down their usage at the very end of June, and we’re not seeing this reflected in the data yet.
Even so, no company wants to say they’ve lost 3% of their customers. With 1.7 billion total, that’s still 51 million people. It’s a notable loss, especially for a company trying to become profitable and have an IPO.
I agree. The real change will be from 1 July onwards since none of us can use our apps anymore.
Yeah, I don’t exactly understand how but RIF is working for me, despite the fact you can’t log into it. I only kept it as a momento, but it still works as long as you have the subs you want to see memorized…
I would love it if that was true, but think the impact of the blackout making ALL users unable to access whole swathes of the site might be bigger
I think there are still some subs that are private, and I know a couple went NSFW and a bunch are getting harassed by admins to reopen or remove the NSFW tag.
My friend told me the cyberpunk sub couldn’t reply to the email they got telling them to turn off the NSFW tag. Because nearly full on sex scenes, decapitation, huge hogs with giant titties is absolutely SFW.
no company wants to say they’ve lost 3% of their customers
Reddit doesn’t see users as customers.
They are the product. A number that you can sell to advertisers and shareholders.
That model started with literal radio. It’s not a new thing. We are the consumers and the advertisers are the customers. It’s kinda like how children are the consumers of toys but the parents are the customers. It actually makes business much harder because you have to keep two groups satisfied. The product is still airtime(radio), and nobody likes ads but they are sharing the space and funding the transmitter.
Don’t forget to donate to your local independent stations, folks. Radio is not free! Neither is Lemmy.
I think this an overly simplistic way to look at the dynamic. Users are the primary customer, and they don’t provide any direct revenue to the company. Their value is in attracting the secondary customers though, who directly pay the company to access the users. Bring a primary customer implies that the company still needs to treat you as a customer and at least not openly antagonize you. They can’t take you for granted as a product. There is no secondary customer without you.
It’s like bars that advertise free drinks for women on certain nights. The women aren’t directly paying the bar, but the men who come to the bar because of them makes it a net profit. I’m sure there’s other examples of this primary/secondary customer dynamic. Anything cheap for kids that sells expensive stuff to parents for instance.
overly simplistic way
It was hyperbolic of course. But really,
Users are the primary customer, and they don’t provide any direct revenue
How can someone who doesn’t provide revenue be the primary customer of a profit oriented company? Ahead of others who actually do, like advertisers?
I used Apollo right up until it shut down, and I haven’t touched Reddit since. I’m guessing I’m not the only one.
I was also an enthusiastic Apollo user.
Other than Lenny, do you replace Reddit with anything else? This thread we’re in now is an exception - there are a lot of posts here. But most threads on Lemmy are pretty empty.
Thats why its up to all of us to start participating.
Protip: If you really want to start a conversation/get engagement, follow Cunningham’s Law:
the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.
So, fill those empty posts with confidently incorrect statements and watch that comment section fill up as people rush in to correct you.
Yep. Just check the site to see if my data request has been processed. Replied to a message in which someone was asking about Lemmy. But that’s it.
Even if 3% is a low number, I guarantee that 3% were reddits more active users and content creators.
If most of the quality content slows to a trickle users will continue to leave and look for more viable platforms.
I am wondering how user count is calculated.
I guarantee you that a huge percentage of Redditors have multiple accounts. Many of which might be inactive. Are all accounts ever created on Reddit still considered part of their current total or are only accounts active in the 6 or 12 months count? If people are legitimately leaving Reddit, I think their losses are going to steamroll because they won’t just lose one user, but instead they will lose that one user and their 2 or 3 alternate accounts as well.
Next month or three are going to look like a bloodybath for Reddit.
Can’t wait!
How many people are less engaged in the internet at the beginning of summer because they’re on vacation or partying? I would think drops like this as the weather improves are pretty normal.
Alternatively, people with more time sign up and shitpost. I recall every summer break Redditors would complain. 🫣
Yeah, I was using Lemmy and Reddit in parallel throughout June (aside from the blackout days, where I stayed off of Reddit out of solidarity,) and only really drastically reduced my Reddit usage this month.
I’d be more interested in next month’s stats
All the media standing on the protests actually probably drive traffic to Reddit
