Did Reddit get massive because of Digg users making a beeline towards them or were they already big before that?
Reddit was big before the Digg migration and got bigger still. It didn’t happen overnight, it took many years. Reddit also benefited from celebrities and other influencers using it to become the default site for this type of content. Lemmy’s problem is there’s no void to fill, Reddit took a hit from the API fiasco but it’s still going strong because 99% of the users didn’t care, or returned soon after. Every subreddit I was in that chose to close down has returned to normal operation, and it’s not even 2 months later.
I like Lemmy, I’m going to keep coming here to see how it grows. Right now, it’s not even close to being a Reddit alternative. It’s barely hanging on, but I wish it the best.
How are people using Reddit, now that all available user interfaces with it are garbage?
I had no idea until I found this just minutes ago myself, but in case you or anyone isn’t aware… https://old.lemmy.world/
I LOVE it.
I’m 50/50 on it.
I don’t want Lemmy to become too big to the point where it’s skirting on becoming the very shithole Reddit currently is.
I’d want Lemmy to at have a healthy amount of clout where it can be it’s own thing without pressure.
The brand promise of Reddit was pretty simple—it was the “Front page of the Internet”.
It did not get popular because of the sub-communities or that there was a sub for everything ( at least not at first ).
Reddit became a thing because it was a single destination that aggregated and curated interesting content from the web that “interesting” people could comment on. If you were only going to make one stop on the Internet, it could be Reddit. Uses could share the main URL by word of mouth and new users would get the same experience. As content grew, Reddit became high ranking in search results.
Lemmy does not really offer the Reddit experience to a new user. New users do not want an offer to find an instance or create one, they want to experience the content, get addicted, and come back.
The closest Lemmy has right now to early Reddit is Lemmy World but how do new users know that? Actually, I guess old.lemmy.world is the closest. :)
Lemmy does not really offer the Reddit experience to a new user.
I agree with one caveat: yet.
If Lemmy can build up its userbase and content it could offer a similar experience to Reddit
The problem is the lack of a main page. People want to type “lemmy.com” and find what they are looking for.
I take it back!
I just type lemmy.com and got redirected to https://lemm.ee/?src=lemmy.com
I think that won’t be as big of an issue in time. As Lemmy grows, eventually people will be exposed to it and other services on the Fediverse and will be more likely to have an idea on how to get started, or at least find good guides.
Remember that pretty much everything on computers requires some instruction at the beginning. The advantage that Reddit and other software have is that people have (and continually are) already taught how to use them.
It’s a similar situation to Linux vs. Windows. A lot of distros on Linux are actually more user friendly and easier to learn than Windows - the issue with getting people to try Linux is that they already know how to use Windows and most people hate learning new things
Real answer: ease of use
If I wanted to find a particular subreddit for whatever, it was as easy as typing in the name of the show or hobby. And it linked to other similar / related subreddits
Or someone would link to another subreddit in a comment.
Here I’m having to sit and learn what an instance is and if the community I was in transfered over, and if they did where did they go. It’s turning away alot of the less tech savvy people.
Does it need to be as popular as reddit? I don’t think so, anything that grows too big becomes a hassle and a problem. But to grow it would need easier interface or ability to find/interact with other communities.
Counter point: lemmy doesn’t need to do anything to become a top website. Just stay decentralized and independently run. If that’s meant to be a “top website” so be it, but that’s not why I’m here.
