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!
Not a mass exodus. Call it a brain drain, if you will. The churn includes those who posted or were moderators. Since those who stayed are directly or indirectly supporting practices that most of us find unacceptable, Reddit will probably forever have that sour taste. It will gradually turn into a pale reminder of what it once was, and it will lose its spark. The sheer volume, quality, and length of posts in the Fediverse is indicative of new user profiles. I am so glad I took the plunge!
Not a mass exodus. Call it a brain drain, if you will. The churn includes those who posted or were moderators.
That’s key, it’s quality over quantity. Those who put a lot into Reddit were also going to be those disproportionately hit by the API changes. Enough of them make the jump and it degrades the quality of Reddit and his a big effect on Lemmy and the alternatives. By the next time Reddit messes up, and they will, the next batch of escapees will find a much more fleshed out set of alternatives, which will make leaving there and staying here easier. Rinse, wash and repeat.
We’ll never get the absolute numbers Reddit has but that’s the kind of aim of a corporate entity that wants to grab as many eyeballs as possible so they can mine the data and serve ads. That’s not what the Fediverse is about. All it really needs is the critical mass of people to make it viable and I think we’re already there.
By the next time Reddit messes up, and they will, the next batch of escapees will find a much more fleshed out set of alternatives, which will make leaving there and staying here easier. Rinse, wash and repeat.
I don’t think that even matters from a business point of view. Even if people aren’t leaving, the problem is that Reddit is not a place new people see as valuable after all the bad press. If they don’t grow, they fail.
Much better choice of words - and as the intelligent conversation and content creation shifts services, eventually there will be a tipping point.
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.
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.
Probably 50 million users and 50 million alt accounts to look at porn.
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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 still pop into reddit (with UBO) and r/all has certainly seen a massive shift since the onset of the protest
Reddit lost it’s content creators to lemmy so you can expect a sharp decline going forward at reddit.
Cool, thanks. I had suspected as much, good to have it confirmed.
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)
How many of those only scroll?
i thought reddit has like 30M-50M users
Not even close is right. As of May, Reddit had 2.02B Monthly views. I don’t think lemmy or mastodon come close to crack the top 10 yet
It depends on what you mean by “mass exodus”.
There has been a mass exodus, in the sense that a mass of people have exited the site and moved elsewhere in a very short period of time. There has not been one, in the sense that the majority of users have left the site.
I get that the people most affected by changes may want to feel like literally everyone and their dog pulled up stakes to follow them. That they’d want that sense of solidarity, and the feeling that they’re giving a proper “Fuck you” to the people that ruined their good time. And I get that people who are just exploring new spaces want to feel like they’re choosing the “winning” side.
But that isn’t the way these things work.
Habits are sticky. Familiar spaces are sticky. Most people do not like change, and will coats to momentum for as long as that momentum exists. They’re not going to migrate until Reddit is completely crumbling.
And maybe we don’t want them to.
This space is not ready for 50 million people. The moderation tools aren’t there yet. The infrastructure to keep them from just jumping on a single server isn’t there yet. The tools and documentation to help people easily set up new instances are still new and being stress tested.
The goal of killing a billion dollar company, or three of them even, isn’t within reach. That’s not a thing that happens overnight. But this is the ground work for taking on that task.
The first thing people need before they can even consider leaving is a viable alternative, and that’s what we’re making here by being active, and interesting.
Well said, thank you.
From Reddit’s PoV I don’t think that there is a mass emigration; it’s just that the most engaged sectors of the community left, so the 99% left don’t give a damn about it. Over time I predict that it’ll be a slow drain, not a mass exodus.
However from Lemmy/Kbin’s PoV there is a mass immigration. And the users are disproportionally active; for example a comm with 3k subscribers getting 1k upvotes in a post, stuff like this.
It’s a strategy straight out of MBA textbooks: Once you’re above a certain size and have a large “common consumer” base, you kick out everyone who would complain about shitty practices and exploitative behaviour. Then you squeeze out all the money you can over a year or three before the rest realize and leave.
It’s fast ROI at the cost of customer retention and long term profits. And investors literally don’t care if the company goes bankrupt as long as they get that money. Because they’ll just move on to the next company and do the same thing all over.
I am seeing precisely this in my workplace. A global company, bought by an investment fund for billions.
The fund cuts away anything that does not directly generate revenue, like product development, maintenance, support. So many people have been let go, the few remaining are unable to keep the ship afloat.
Fund doesn’t care because the numbers are amazing (income vs expenses) and they just want to sell before it sinks.
No care for the livelihood of thousands of employees, or the many very large customers. They will practically die, and that’s okay to the ones in charge.
Brazen but unsurprising to have that in a business text book. Does that strategy have a name?
Oh interesting, yeah. That makes sense. Thanks!
It’s hard to get an exact number but you can extrapolate based on the growth of Lemmy in the last few weeks. While not record-breaking, it is quite an impressive growth.
Also note that not everyone who left Reddit came to Lemmy. There is also Kbin, Tildes and alternative. Some never really left at all.
I think the real damage done to Reddit (ultimately by themselves) is showing the world that there are real alternatives (even if a bit rough around the edges). They are materializing and growing as threats and if Reddit doesn’t step up their game, they could be in some real trouble.
The other possibility is that some other company might step up and build a Reddit clone, much like what Meta’s Threads is to Twitter, once they see that there is blood in the water and a potential to displace Reddit as the “frontpage of the Internet”. Heck, even Threads is built on the Fediverse, maybe a bigcorp-backed Reddit clone might be as well.
frontpage of the Internet
More like the backpage of the Internet.
For you and for me maybe. For many others, they are still happily scrolling away on the official app.
We’re in a bit of a glass house here on that front. The pornsick losers have definitely made themselves at home here.
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They don’t even call themselves that anymore…
In terms of overall users, probably not. In terms of valuable, knowledgeable and hardworking users? Totally.
Take r/AMA for instance. The place was a gigantic draw for Reddit as a space for trustworthy, verified celebrity interactions. The entirety of that work was done by volunteers who have since left that work behind. As such, the place literally can not function as it was.
Another example I saw much closer is r/piracy. Despite what astroturfing bots and Spez Stans would have you believe, Reddit absolutely wanted that sub opened because of what a huge draw it is. Just looking at what they did is enough to prove that. They removed the top mod, manually un-privated the sub, then removed the next top mod for continuing to protest before installing their own. The place is open now and working “normally.” Despite this, there’s really no one knowledgeable left over there. I looked recently, and I found a lot of highly-upvoted, really awful advice. Like, some borderline dangerous stuff.
Yeah, the real r/piracy is now here on the Fediverse:
They’d been preparing for the eventuality they’d have to leave Reddit for a while, foreseeing the day Reddit would throw them to copyright wolves and shut down the sub. Though I doubt they had “Reddit imploding” on their list of possible reasons to leave, all that prep worked out really well.
That was fun, watching Reddit admin twist and squirm and repeatedly fishflop over r/piracy until they got their scabs in permanently. Like you I wouldn’t touch the Reddit sub now, and don’t recommend anyone else trust it either.
Arrrrrrrr, thankee lad
What kind of dangerous stuff? Like holding their sword in their mouth as they climb rigging with the sharp side towards them? Not taking all of their vitamins?
I don’t care I like it here, fuck that place
My sentiment exactly
My opinion is that if you give a shit about how and where you spend your time, you will not support a platform run by and inhabited by dickheads.
Vote with your feet, or thumbs in this case.
No. But enough came that Lemmy is now a vibrant place.
I think that’s really all we can ask for. I already miss some of the subs back on reddit but I’m sure they’ll start showing up here eventually
Some useful communities:
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)
Would you happen to know of a good step-by-step guide on how to create a new community?
There’s a niche sub on Reddit I have not seen yet here and I would not mind having a go at recreating it, I’m just having a hard time figuring out what the steps are because the information is in different places. So if anyone can point me in the right direction I’d truly appreciate it.
Are you on phone or PC, web or app?
Web on PC, plain browser interface, sorry I didn’t state that upfront. And thank you. :)
There is a New Community button in the header
I don’t know how I missed that. Many thanks. :D
You’re expecting something like the Digg to Reddit mass emigration. That likely will never happen again, the conditions for that are gone. What’s happening is what i predicted for years, people are moving away from the site but not going to a single “replacement” place as there’s just nothing like it, but to many. Be it the Fediverse, Discord, Facebook and related properties, various chats, even forums and freaking IRC.
And it’s also clear it’s not going to be a single massive exodus, but a slow decay over a long time. The site will still be alive ten years from now, like Livejournal and other relics of the past are still technically alive, but will slowly fade from relevance.
And one important thing: Sites like that depend on a few users, the so-called 90-9-1 rule explains it well, only a tiny, tiny percentage of users of the site produce the content it needs to survive, and they’re precisely the ones the administration pissed off. And not only that, but it depends on the moderators, without them the site would devolve to a sewer in no time, and they too have been shafted by the administration. A good portion of them have left the site for good, and the hit will be perceived in time, as they cannot be replaced easily.
Everything that made the site good is dying or dead, let it die, or just survive as a zombie. It will become a cesspool of reposts, recycled content and garbage, and any user that creates good content that still remains there will eventually leave at seeing what the site will turn into.
Digg to Reddit wasn’t a single mass exodus either. It took years, even after the digg redesign. There were still plenty of people left on digg complaining how reddit’s UI sucked, was super confusing, and people would eventually come crawling back. The redesign was just the beginning of the end, just like this API thing will probably be the beginning of the end for reddit too
I deleted 14 years of posts and 2 weeks later they banned me for a non-existent TOS violation weeks after the post in question was overwritten with a single letter then deleted.
So, ya, People are going to be looking for a replacement. reddit can go suck a failed ipo.
I don’t think it’s a mass exodus. However in situations like these I think it’s important to look at the rate of change. r*ddit is steadily getting worse, and Lemmy is steadily getting better. I don’t think there will be an immediate sea change, but hopefully there will be fits and starts in the right direction.
Mass exodus?
Nope.
Howevir, Lemmy has reached the critical mass of users and is usable. In parallel some active users left reddit, and many sub reddits relies on a handful of active users who post and comment, even one of them leaving here is impacting the life of these subs
Since I’m forced to use the official app, the subs I mod are going to shit. The hidden tools and cluttered interface impose a real challenge to properly investigate reported posts and users.
So now I just do the bare bare minimum and basically flip a coin when wondering to remove stuff. And boy oh boy it already shows.
Are there any good mod tools for the activitypub based alternatives, or is it equally bad here for now?
When the app I used to access Reddit, Joey for Reddit, went down yesterday I moved to Lemmy. They were working with Reddit to setup paid API access and Reddit shutdown their access mid negotiation. I already had a Lemmy account but didn’t use it til now. I know a lot of other Joey users that did the same.
So Joey was willing to pay for API access and Reddit still shut them down?
There clearly is not. Even people on here, who say they “quit” Reddit, often go on to say “I only go on it now for this one subreddit” or “I only go on it to check news” etc. Spez bet that people would either not care about him shitting all over the Reddit community for profit, or be too addicted to Reddit to actually do anything about it. And he was right.
These predictions that Reddit will collapse because the “power users” have left are ridiculous. It’s not difficult to find recycled trash on the internet to shitpost on Reddit. Hell, bots can do it, and have been. People just want garbage to mindlessly scroll through and leave their dumb comments on (“user name checks out, har har”).
I will personally never use Reddit as long as it’s run my Spez (or any other equivalent asshole), but it’s quite clear that they’ve survived this API debacle just fine.
True. But, the power users leaving will likely have a long term impact.
The thing that set Reddit apart from all the other spaces to settle down on the internet was that Reddit’s users made it work, not Reddit.
They had their faults; moderation wasn’t perfect. But, it was good in the places it needed to be. Reddit was also very good at attracting “experts” in niche topics. You could reliably trust askscience, askhistorians, whatisthisbug, etc.
Reddit has plenty of memes, porn and funny cats to attract the masses, but it was the power users that made Reddit what it was.
On top of that, Reddit was so customizable because of all the 3rd party apps that had polish. Apollo, BaconReader, etc., no ads and lots of options to choose from to suit your needs.
Good points, I guess time will tell if enough people with enough significance left (or will leave). I just don’t think so, unfortunately. But hopefully.
Cutting back your engagement from 30h a week to 30m is a huge shot against Reddit tho.
I kept my account alive but now only follow a handful of subs and am finding alternatives weekly. Discord. Lemmy.
This all results in a huge loss for Reddit because no one’s there for the ads or promoted posts. And that’s all they’ll have left after a while. And that’s not enough to attract a real base. Reddit won’t die overnight but look at what one fatal move did to Tumblr (when they banned porn). It tanked the site so hard that it’s losing money daily now. A stark contrast from when it sold for billions.
Corporations are far too flippant in thinking they are indestructible. And how they handled the API changes tells you that, like Tumblr, they made a serious mistake.
It’s the same with Facebook. People are so addicted to it that no matter how badly they are treated they just can’t quit. No matter the evidence repeatedly presented with just how evil FB is, I have still never convinced a family member to get off it. At this point I just will have to be satisfied with them never referencing me or having any pictures of me on it. Reddit is the same, but not as extreme.
It’s the same with Facebook. People are so addicted to it that no matter how badly they are treated they just can’t quit.
Facebook is a very different beast. It exists and thrives because it convinced people to engage personally. It’s difficult to leave Facebook because family and friends are there. And Facebook also bought a lot of the competition and branched out: Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. It also has value to businesses, it has a market place, it truly is a monster.
Reddit has nothing. It doesn’t know its users and most of them are really careful to keep anonymous. It has shared interests communities, but not friendships/personal relationships. It’s really easy to quit Reddit if one decides to. It does not affect daily life.
