…relative to Reddit’s size?

I see so many posts and comments voicing disappointment with Lemmy’s lack of massive expansion.

I too want to see Lemmy gain more users, but I do not want it to grow to Reddit’s size. If Reddit is the yardstick, I’d say that a population that large attracts a lot of negative behaviours; degeneration of discourse, amplification of echo chambers and hive mind behaviour, etc…

I started on Reddit in 2010 and found that by 2016 things were really bad in comparison. A fun and engaging site was experiencing an obvious devolution that persists to this day, accelerated by Spez’s enshittification of the platform. Obviously the fediverse insulates us from that occurring here but I think you get what I mean.

Do you you think Lemmy is too small? I don’t. I’ve been here since the great migration last year and have had a really good time. I see a lot of familiar names in the comments on a daily basis. It actually feels like a community here. I guess I just don’t understand the fixation on the size of Lemmy’s user base. Curious to hear your thoughts.

[EDIT] Thanks for all the responses, everyone! Lots of perspectives I hadn’t yet considered.

  • hahattpro@lemmy.world
    31·
    5 months ago

    More people need to know about lemmy.

    Perhaps the next time reddit fuck off, we will see.

    But i think it might not a case anymore, because Reddit is so good with censor now.

    Comment hide, shallowban new account, especially detect multi and shallowban in 30 minutes, it is unlikely there will be a revolt on Reddit.

  • sir_pronoun@lemmy.worldEnglish
    62·
    5 months ago

    You can insult and annoy more people with your comments when there’s more users, so…

    (People on lemmy are way too nice. I love that, but I miss old fashioned trolling here. It’s just part of the internet for me.)

    • IndiBrony@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      5 months ago

      Yeah will I think you’re a fucking idiot for that shitty take 👍

      (Am I doing it right? ❤️)

    • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
      3·
      5 months ago

      (People on lemmy are way too nice. I love that, but I miss old fashioned trolling here. It’s just part of the internet for me.)

      Hey, Fucko. While I also miss that a bit, I find the positivity that I encounter more in the Fediverse to be much better for my mental and emotional health. Plus, it’s inconveniencing you in particular 💕.

  • Caveman@lemmy.world
    13·
    5 months ago

    I want more small communities with people who really like specific things. For example if you want to buy a robot vacuum going to a community about it is very nice to read up on what people find important and maybe issues with a particular model. Even the memes sometimes have great info (think something like a popular vacuum that doesn’t pick up anything with “At least you tried” or spongebob meme pointing at stuff of increasing sizes referencing areas the vacuum missed)

    • Caveman@lemmy.world
      12·
      5 months ago

      Example meme I just created for robo vacs which I’d like to see in the some robovac community.

  • artemisRiverborne@lemmy.world
    41·
    5 months ago

    I guess for me it’s disappointing to see how much nonsense ppl will put up with from reddit, when so many ppl made noises Abt how they wld leave

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
    121·
    5 months ago

    Im looking at it from a whole fediverse perspective but its large enough as is to be enjoyable. If it gets larger fine, if not fine. I just want it to develop to have as much freedom as possible and give as much control as possible to the individual for their experience.

  • jimmydoreisalefty@lemmy.world
    610·
    5 months ago

    They are used to the short-term goals of stonks.

    The more people there are, the more popular it is with the working class. Instead of being a niche community, you can meet non-tech people that know about Lemmy.

    Lemmy is good as is; slow growth is better, IMO.

  • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
    6·
    5 months ago

    I saw a bunch of new people join recently because of Reddit saying something about potentially pay walling subs. Perhaps that has something to do with it.

  • rustyfish@lemmy.world
    25·
    5 months ago

    Like others already pointed out, it’s not about the size per se. It’s about the small odd communities of specific interest that we miss. These usually only thrive with numbers.

    Then again, I used Lemmy for over a year and didn’t get a single death threat. I went back to check my Reddit account and had two in my inbox, I didn’t use the site since the exodus. Soooooooo, yeah. You win some you loose some.

  • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
    82·
    5 months ago

    I mean, Lemmy is pretty much news and… That’s it. I loved the smaller communities of Reddit. And Reddit was really nice, you just had to get off the subs with millions of subscribers.

  • nucleative@lemmy.worldEnglish
    221·
    5 months ago

    Does anyone remember the inside jokes in the early days of reddit?

    When does the narwhal bacon? Orangered Chuck Testa!! Ridiculously photogenic guy And of course the long list of meme-level posts like broken arms, cumbox, celebrity AMAs

    This type of community humor made a lot of people feel like they’d found their tribe on reddit in those early days.

    I haven’t seen much like this develop on Lemmy yet, possibly because there’s so many disparate communities merging. I’m not really sure. Or maybe all those 20-something redditors are now pushing 40.

    I think it will take a while for a lemmy culture to develop and the community won’t attract outsiders much until it does.

  • LifeOfChance@lemmy.world
    15·
    5 months ago

    This is of course only my opinion but I want it much bigger but maybe not the size of reddit. I like being able to have a problem and going into the specialized community to ask the pros. Online searching is currently slowing down results. AI searches will tell someone to use an outlet to fix a pipe and if someone searching for something they don’t know may try figuring out why their pipe doesn’t even have a plug. I also like to research into things HEAVILY and having a community where I can sift through thousands of posts to form an idea of what I’m looking to learn is nice.

    With that said I can’t knock lemmy any because the community that has 150 people will have 125 of them respond to anything you post.

    • StarLight@lemmy.world
      3·
      5 months ago

      With that said I can’t knock lemmy any because the community that has 150 people will have 125 of them respond to anything you post.

      Yeah. Compared to Reddit which can have a sub with millions of members but the top posts only get like 12k upvotes and 300 comments

  • Plopp@lemmy.world
    24·
    5 months ago

    On Reddit I went to specific subreddits and things were bubbling there, on Lemmy I pretty much have to stay on All to get any active content. I really don’t want Lemmy to reach eternal September, but we definitely need much more activity and a much larger user base than we currently have.

    • RedstoneValley@sh.itjust.works
      15·
      5 months ago

      Same here. On the upside, "All“ on Lemmy has a much higher quality than what Reddit had in the past years. I really enjoy my daily doomscroll on Lemmy.