Being warned for upvoting comments. Had posts removed without any context or reason. Had a subreddit shadow ban me. I’m done with this proto-fascism-sympathetic corpo website. Please, please make a fediverse alt that is as popular or ready to be marketable.
Posted by CelebrationMassive87@reddit | RedditAlternatives | View on Reddit | 107 comments
I’ve been on Bluesky, it’s fine but the Reddit style communities, upvote system and discussion based prototype is way more valuable to me and I believe it is a way more enlightened social media experience than Tweets or Facebook posts or any other alternative, imo. It also encourages more news and information based posting whereas I do believe any Twitter alternative has a habit of being way more click-baity.
ive been on lemmy and a few of its fediverse rivals but I’ve yet to see the same level of engagement or diversity that Reddit provides. I don’t mean diversity in a political sense, we know Reddit is largely left leaning, but in the nicheness of communities. And to me, the biggest flaw is it has no motivation for being marketable (I’m talking iOS or Android accessible (unless I’m mistaken), having some means for reaching out to users and markets.
Like this subreddit is an example to me, there’s wayyyy more than 60k people who want to leave this site and don’t use Facebook or twitter. It’s about reaching out. As another example, (not social media, but sort of) Lichess competes with chess.com as a free and open sourced alternative.. it’s few developers make money off of donations and it enables it to be marketable, and extremely competitive in terms of user base.. so I absolutely don’t buy that just because fediverse isn’t profit based that it can’t reach out and be competitive.
eccsoheccsseven@reddit
If you want there to be less control over you I'd suggest my site, GoatMatrix, https://goatmatrix.net. We see this kind of thread three times a week. And immediately people suggest lemmy. I almost feel like they don't read the posts or the OPs concern because Lemmy is exactly like reddit in everyway.
If you want to find something that suits you you have to try more things and not just the things that are popular.
AtheistAgnostic@reddit
Lemmy will be the closest once it grows. Voyager for app.
Just keep on Lemmy. It feels like Reddit did 14 years ago.
DegeneratesInc@reddit
Just tried voyager. Tried yo lig in. "Pivk the server you signed up on" from this list if 50 servers. Surely they jest. This is like Gmail asking me (c2013) what date I activated my (invite only) gmail account when it was hacked.
scstraus@reddit
No, it's like your email client asking which site you have an email account on.
DegeneratesInc@reddit
Actually, it's more like IRC. 'Which Dalnet server do I need to sign into to find that particular channel I was chatting on last week?'
threelonmusketeers@reddit
Except with Lemmy, you can participate in all the communities without ever leaving your home instance.
DegeneratesInc@reddit
So, having chosen a lemmy server with a virtual pin maybe 18 months ago, how do you suggest I find out which totally random server I signed up on? Or should I just make a new account?
mighty3mperor@reddit
If you can remember your username you can search for it and that'll give you the instance:
https://lemm.ee/search?q=&type=Users&listingType=All&page=1&sort=TopAll
threelonmusketeers@reddit
Could you clarify what you mean by a virtual pin? If you don't remember the server, do you remember your username or anything you posted?
DegeneratesInc@reddit
A 'virtual pin' as in the kind you put in a map with your eyes shut.
It wasn't anything groundbreakjng or earth saving. I'll just make a new account. Unless I happen to randomly choose the same random server again.....
Deceptichum@reddit
I can't remember where I made my email address, what random site was it again? gmail, hotmail, yahoomail, arghh this is all so confusing, I'm quitting email forever it's too hard.
DegeneratesInc@reddit
If I open an email account at Gmail it doesn't offer me 50 servers to pick from.
Deceptichum@reddit
Either does opening a Lemmy instance.
If you're looking at a directory of Lemmy or Email hosts instead of going directly to their sites, that's purely on you.
I use 'quokk.au' and I find it easy enough to remember and visit, plus nothing else really starts with q so my autocomplete doesn't compete with anything else.
threelonmusketeers@reddit
If you're interested, here are a couple common recommendations:
Feel free to ask if you have questions!
Die4Ever@reddit
can you search your email? but there's no harm in just making a new account
100WattWalrus@reddit
Not when it's asking you to create an account. When you don't yet have an account, it's like your email client saying "which of these 50 email providers do you want to sign up for with zero context or information about them or why anyone might pick one over another."
This is a huge hurdle for Lemmy adoption. Unless you're already familiar with how federation works and have some familiarity with different instances, you reach this point in the process and haven't the slightest idea how to proceed.
People say "Well, just pick one. You can change it later if you really want to." That doesn't help. The whole point of at least half the instances out there is that there's some identity baked into the choice.
onymousbosch@reddit
This is where I stopped trying to make an account.
100WattWalrus@reddit
After several times flirting with joining Lemmy, I finally did create an account at lemm.ee, which is just a generalized community — and have done literally nothing with it. But at least when the time comes and there's something worth doing, I'll already have an account.
The other problem with Lemmy, and other federated social media, is the unavoidable complexity of usernames.
I'm just u/100WattWalrus on Reddit. I'm just @ 100WattWalrus on Twitter (abandoned). On Lemmy I'm guess I'm @100WattWalrus@lemm.ee or something like that?
BlazeAlt@reddit
How do you give your email address to people? It's exactly the same format : username@emailprovider.tld
100WattWalrus@reddit
Email is a private form of correspondence. It's not a way people find you for public discourse. And, by and large, the domain part of people's email addresses has some intuitive element to it — either a well-known domain (gmail, yahoo, outlook, etc) or related to why you're emailing in the first place (e.g., comanyname.url). So even if whatever is before the @ is some nickname or handle instead of a variation on your name, it's still fairly easy for people to remember if you just speak it. But let's be real here — almost everyone has at least one email address that is some variation on firstname.lastname[at]easily-remembered.url.
That's entirely different than social media, where user handles tend to be creative, short, and memorable. As I said in other reply, at the end of a podcast, the hosts will give out social media handles like [at]ThePodcastTitle, or even just their own Twitter handles, which may be unrelated, but they're not 30-50 characters, half of which are likely at a domain that has no context.
If you're listening to a podcast calld Pogs, Dogs, and Beer while driving, and the host wraps up the show saying, "you can find us at PogsDogsBeer on Twitter or on Mastodon at @PogsDogsBeer@SiteYouveNeverHeardOf.url" — which one are you going to remember by the time you go to follow them?
BlazeAlt@reddit
All the contact@company.tld, info@company.tld, privacy@company.tld contradict this.
If people handle a podcast, they might consider having their own Lemmy instance.
An example is the KDE community (Linux software). They have their own instance: https://lemmy.kde.social/
Carl Schwan is a KDE Developer (https://carlschwan.eu/). They have https://lemmy.kde.social/u/carlschwan, or carlschwan@lemmy.kde.social
100WattWalrus@reddit
Having your own instance is definitely the way to go — at least until some Mastodon and Lemmy instances start to become well-known. Of course, that means having to know how to set up an instance, which isn't going to be remotely in the wheelhouse of most people. [at]MeaningfulHandle on Twitter or BlueSky is still easier by orders of magnitude.
Those aren't your personal emails that you're giving out to people as a way to contact you. :)
BlazeAlt@reddit
How many usernames does a regular Reddit user need to remember on a daily basis to use the site?
Yours for instance is also quite difficult to remember. Is it 1000WattWalrus, 100WattsWalrus, 1000WattsWalrus? But at the end of the day, that doesn't matter that much, as on Reddit people browse by subreddits, not by people (as opposed to Twitter / Mastodon)
100WattWalrus@reddit
Hence the reason I was specifying Twitter and BlueSky in my example.
But again, these are just examples of the larger point: There are a lot more barriers to onboarding and adoption for federated social media than for billionaire-owned social media. If federated social media is to ever be more than a flash in the pan, those barriers need to be addressed.
BlazeAlt@reddit
Feel free to join us on https://lemm.ee/c/fedibridge@lemmy.dbzer0.com to try to lower them
100WattWalrus@reddit
Tab opened and pinned. I do not have my shit together right now, but once I come up for air, I'll probably do just that.
BlazeAlt@reddit
Looking forward seeing you there!
Die4Ever@reddit
so you're 100WattWalrus AT Reddit, and 100WattWalrus AT Twitter, and 100WattWalrus AT lemm.ee... it's literally the same thing
100WattWalrus@reddit
Except that when looking for someone on Reddit or Twitter, you don't need the [AT]SomeObscure.URL part (of which there are hundreds), because you're already there.
RatherNott@reddit
Most lemmy apps let you remove the @ part of usernames if you prefer, only revealing it if you click on their profile.
When you @ people in lemmy, it'll usually pop up a little list of usernames that match it closest, and you can pick which one you want.
100WattWalrus@reddit
That's probably good enough on Lemmy, since Lemmy handles are something one might use to promote themselves publicly. But it's still problematic for platforms like Mastodon, where you want people to be able to just find you.
Borrowing from a reply to another redditor a few minutes ago: If you're listening to a podcast calld Pogs, Dogs, and Beer while driving, and the host wraps up the show saying, "you can find us at PogsDogsBeer on Twitter or on Mastodon at @PogsDogsBeer@SiteYouveNeverHeardOf.url" — which one are you going to remember by the time you go to follow them?
triangularRectum420@reddit
If someone is important enough for me to care about, I would remember their username. For instance, /u/BlazeAlt's account^(†) is
@blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com.100WattWalrus@reddit
That doesn't address the example I gave of a podcast giving out their socials at the end of an episode. You don't know BlazeAlt's lemmy handle because it's easy to remember (it most definitely is not). You remember it because you've encountered it often enough that it has stuck in your memory. What I'm talking about is finding people on social media, and how much easier that is on Twitter or BlueSky than on an federated platform.
Again...
@ PogsDogsBeer on Twitter
versus
@ PogsDogsBeer@SiteYouveNeverHeardOf.url on Matstodon
Now, you could argue that the Pogs, Dogs & Beer podcast should create their own instance to make this easier. That's definitely one way to alleviate some of this problem, but even if you come up with a good domain for your instance...
I'm not actually looking for answers to those questions. I'm just further demonstrating how federated social media is, just by its nature, orders of magnitude more complicated than corporate social media. And that's my entire underlying point: For federated social media to become anything more than niche, it either needs to become simpler, or there needs to be a simple way for people to understand and onboard.
triangularRectum420@reddit
A quick clarification for self-hosting services: You can host all the services your bloodline may ever want under a single domain. This applies to all self-hostable software, not just federated social media. Typically, you wouls set up subdomains or specific paths to differentiate between the services.
I still don't understand why one would need to create their own instance. But even then, there are managed hosting solutions available that can host everything you'd need for as little as $3/month.
100WattWalrus@reddit
My example of a podcast setting up its own instance was to counter the inevitable suggestion someone would make that they could do just that, so their federated social media could be, for example, @show@pogsdogsandbeer.com instead of @PogsDogsBeer@SiteYouveNeverHeardOf.url.
But the point is, none of those options are as simple and listener-friendly as "You can find us [at]PogsDogsBeer on all the socials." And that is the underlying hurdle for wide-spread adoption of federated social media.
BlazeAlt@reddit
If people handle a podcast, they might consider having their own Lemmy instance, as you probably already have your own domain name.
An example is the KDE community (Linux software). They have their own instance: https://lemmy.kde.social/
Carl Schwan is a KDE Developer (https://carlschwan.eu/). They have https://lemmy.kde.social/u/carlschwan, or carlschwan@lemmy.kde.social
MatiasGonzalo-Duarte@reddit
It's a reddit style forum the whole point is users are semi-anonymous how often do you really just go to profiles of people randomly? And you can just search for them if you do need to. You can also just click their name when you see content posted by them
100WattWalrus@reddit
That's why I included Twitter in my example.
Die4Ever@reddit
looking for someone? idk that I've ever searched for a username on Reddit, not sure why I would need to do that on Lemmy
but like why aren't you copy-pasting anyways?
100WattWalrus@reddit
You know at the end of podcasts when the hosts say "find us on Twitter [at]NameOfPodcast? Not so easy on federated social media.
At best, someone who wants to be easy to find might host their own instance, choosing a URL that makes them easier to find. One of the hosts of one of my favorite podcasts started their own Mastodon instance using a joke from the show for the URL, so he was [at]jimmy[at]thewhatnow.something. But the fact that I don't remember what that something was pretty much proves my point. On Twitter, he was [at]jimmythewho — infinitely easier to remember.
That's all I'm saying. It will be difficult for federated social media to really take hold when there are hurdles like this.
Die4Ever@reddit
I see what you mean, I don't really follow people like that. I guess they could just have links. That's more applicable to the Twitter/Mastodon format though, which is a format I'm just not interested in. Bluesky (and Email) hasn't seemed to have too much trouble here, they're growing fast, they have the same format of usernames except they use a period instead of an @ sign
100WattWalrus@reddit
I hope something comes along that makes federated more onboarding-friendly, because I'd love to live in a world where corporate social media is upended by grass-roots social media.
threelonmusketeers@reddit
Yep, exactly!
100WattWalrus@reddit
I'm actually aware. My point was the overcomplexity of usernames is another one of the hurdles for federated social media vs single-instance social media. [at]username is easy and marketable, [at]username[another at]SomeNonsensical.url is not. Granted this is more of a Mastodon problem than a Lemmy problem.
AtheistAgnostic@reddit
https://join-lemmy.org/instances
There are a lot of general ones, and a lot of regional ones https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1atu2e8/localregional_lemmy_servers/
True-Surprise1222@reddit
It links their privacy statement and the answer is they are all less bad than Reddit. And you can even host your own instance ! If you don’t trust anyone
100WattWalrus@reddit
I think you replied to the wrong comment, friend. :)
True-Surprise1222@reddit
Yeahhhh but in the right thread lol my bad but you literally cannot go wrong picking one because your identity matters less on Lemmy since federation etc. just pick the biggest one (ie first on list) and then you have as close as you can get to a Reddit replacement. Not good for federation as a whole but does the trick for new users.
100WattWalrus@reddit
I tried that when I joined Mastodon. It took several attempts before I found an instance that was actually taking new users.
Plus, the very fact that there are options — let alone dozens of options — makes it seem like the choice you make has some intrinsic value. I mean, if you're looking for a job and you just pick the biggest employer, you end up working at WalMart. Not the best metaphor, I know (it's not up to you whether you get a job at the place you pick), but you get the idea.
Besides, if you tell someone it's not important what instance they pick, their very next question will be, "Then why do I have to pick at all? And why are there so many?" And then you're back to having to explain the whole thing, and we're back to the problem of how to explain federation to someone without making their eyes roll back in their heads.
I'm not saying its an insurmountable problem. I'm just saying that so far I haven't seen any explanation that, you know, doesn't require further explanation.
True-Surprise1222@reddit
I would argue Reddit is like Walmart and any Lemmy instance is like a regional chain (even if you pick the biggest and “worst”). You can of course go to your local grocer or farmers market if you really want to… that’s Lemmy.
100WattWalrus@reddit
I was using WalMart to illustrate why "just pick the biggest one" isn't necessarily a solution for choosing a Lemmy instance.
The fact that there's so many to choose from implies reasons exist for choosing one over another. That further implies some are better than others (intrinsically or just for your own neeeds), which even further implies that it behooves you to know something about those reasons before making a choice.
Whether or not any of that is actually the case isn't the point. The point is that someone dipping their toe into Lemmy or Mastodon for the first time is often faced with choices that have never been adequately explained — and that is a barrier to adoption. To become more than a niche idea, federated social media either need to either get simpler or develop a really good ELI5 primer that people can read and understand in just a minute or two.
AtheistAgnostic@reddit
https://join-lemmy.org/instances
There are a lot of general ones, and a lot of regional ones https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1atu2e8/localregional_lemmy_servers/
100WattWalrus@reddit
Oh, I get all that. I'm saying it's a barrier to adoption. People looking for a Reddit alt who have no familiarity with federation are expecting to go somewhere and just sign up. They're not expecting go somewhere, spend who knows how long having to make a decision about an instance (whatever that is) based on, at most, some vague 25-word description — then sign up for whatever that is instead, and hope they "got it right" (whatever that might mean).
It's like telling an average Android looking for more privacy to "just install a custom ROM." Somewhat less complicated to be sure, but you wouldn't expect your grandma understand choosing a Lemmy instance any more than you'd expect her to understand installing a custom ROM. If nothing else, it's a hurdle she wouldn't be expecting.
I'd love to see the Fediverse take off and leave billionaire social media in the dust, but the likelihood of that happening is exponentially smaller when the very first step a user must take involves unexpected, poorly explained hurdles.
Die4Ever@reddit
This is why we should just point people to a specific general instance. No one says "hey join a phpBB site, those are fun", they give a direct link to the site they want you to join them at. The word "Lemmy" does not need to be said. You can just tell your friend "hey join me on https://discuss.online/ it's fun" and that's it.
100WattWalrus@reddit
That's one way to go, and certainly less confusing than explaining federation. I suppose you can say, "you can find reddit-like communities there too. You'll get the hang of it, and the more people that join those kind of communities, the less we're dependent on billionaire social media."
teatiller@reddit
Did you not save your password in your password manager?
deeleelee@reddit
You got two options: Remember the server you registered on or
or be doomed to stay in corpo controlled boomer-compatible sites like insta and Reddit
Can't even remember a server name lol, filtered
DegeneratesInc@reddit
I've got more important things in life to remember than which particular lemmy server I happened to have signed up to at least a year ago.
deeleelee@reddit
maybe invest in the ability remember to lemmy addresses, remembering search functions in your email inbox, or how to take notes about things you sign up for?????
Is your username in reference to your mind, or your memory perhaps?
RatherNott@reddit
It's pretty quick to make a new account on a new lemmy server, most don't even require an email. I'd recommend Sopuli.xyz as a really solid all-rounder general type instance. :)
Let me know if you need any help! I've been over there for a couple years now \^^
BlazeAlt@reddit
Voyager by default has the "Join lemm.ee" button, which chooses lemm.ee for you.
Log in is the button used for people already having an account.
rdyoung@reddit
I'm using sync, the dev previously had sync for reddit and when they changed the api rules he turned it into a lemmy app.
DouglasJFalcon@reddit
And, as usually we're patiently waiting for an update.
BlazeAlt@reddit
In the meantime, you can give other options a try, there are plenty of them: https://www.lemmyapps.com/
DouglasJFalcon@reddit
Eh, I'm just bare knuckling having to open local posts in summit
cecilkorik@reddit
Lemmy is great. The anti-Lemmy trolls will be here shortly, spouting their usual garbage about how it's too much and they will for whatever reason never understand there are whole islands of lemmy instances completely defederated from each other because the others are too for them. If your views aren't mainstream that's not Lemmy's fault and you aren't entitled to hang out with the mainstream, the beauty of Lemmy is that we don't have to tolerate political trolls and NEITHER DO YOU, political trolls, go find your island echo chamber and enjoy your nonsense.
grizzly-tm@reddit
this is so stupid , "political trolls" when you have no arguments to make then you just start calling names to deflect. everyone calling someone a troll when they dont like what the person has to say its pathetic and weak .
FoxyMiira@reddit
It's funny because isn't lemmy.ml owned by the Lemmy Devs. Dunno if it's the same devs but a while ago I saw one of them promote Lemmy in this sub and they said Lemmy has a large tankie userbase and that's why they needed more moderates lmao
wrongo_bongos@reddit
Thanks for mentioning voyager. Downloading it right now.
MomentPale4229@reddit
There is also the
Photon UI https://photon.europe.pub/
And for Reddit OGs https://old.europe.pub/
scstraus@reddit
Yeah as a 15 year user of Reddit, it reminds me of the early years too, and I absolutely love going back to those days. Sure all the niche communities aren't completely thriving, but honestly many of the ones here are just full of junk too. I think reddit is too big and I favor quality over quantity, which is what I feel like I have at Lemmy.
Delicious_Ease2595@reddit
Have you ever lurked in forums? It's similar vibe but activity pub has the federation which puts all servers together.
G4-Dualie@reddit
Good luck trying to deactivate a Reddit account. They have all kinds of excuses why your account can’t activated. Old Reddit is no help whatsoever.
I deleted every comment I ever made and weeks later, they were all restored.
ShaolinShade@reddit
You deleted every comment you made? Like by hand?
I can't even imagine how long that would take me to do 😅 I've made thousands of comments over the years
Seeing them all restored after doing all that would make me so furious...
Small_Delivery_7540@reddit
If you are from eu you can just send them email asking for all your info to be deleted and they have to do it
AlpsGroundbreaking@reddit
At least you have lemmy. Ive been waiting for days and still havent gotten my account approved. I have been getting on reddit significantly less the past week or maybe more though so idk. I might just end up accepting that all social media is ass and go back to living life the way I did before the shit was made.
Everything seems better without it anyways lol
StunningShifts@reddit
sign up on a different instance like lemmy.world or lemm.ee, the all view shows you all post across all instances, you don't have to keep trying on the one you can't get an email from
AlpsGroundbreaking@reddit
lemmy.world was the one I signed up for but yeah I may check out lemm.ee. And I didnt keep trying. Just been waiting for a confirmation. Did try logging in to see if maybe I just didnt get one but no dice.
Doesnt really matter to me too much. Genuinely been kind of enjoying just stepping away from social media and spending much less time on it anyways.
ShaolinShade@reddit
I signed up on lemmy.world too and it took a bit, somewhere around a week or so before they confirmed me IIRC. They're a bit slow to add people on that server I guess
threelonmusketeers@reddit
Tagging lemmy.world admin /u/lemmy-kersploosh. Might you be able to assist this user?
lemmy-kersploosh@reddit
u/AlpsGroundbreaking if you send an email to info@lemmy.world requesting your verification email to be resent then we can get it taken care of. Make sure to send it from the same email address that you tried to sign up with so we know it's you.
MatiasGonzalo-Duarte@reddit
Not all Lemmy instances do manual approval. thelemmy.club is a small one I know of. sh.itjust.works is a larger one. lemmy.wtf a smaller one hosted in Europe.
You'll have the same general experience on any of those. A lot of instances turn on registration approval to fight spam.
DegeneratesInc@reddit
For a site I'm sampling to test the waters, no. If I decide to go back often enough, yes. But this doesn't tell me which server that password is on.
SoggyGrayDuck@reddit
Yep and it needs some centralization but the ability to break away if needed. I don't want to use fucking Google to find new "subreddits". I want new suggestions to pop up in my feed based on my habits. I like finding new and additional content due to cookies and tracking but we also need the ability to pack up and move quickly if needed.
BlazeAlt@reddit
https://quiblr.com/
SoggyGrayDuck@reddit
That doesn't link to whatever you were trying to link, it's just the homepage
CelebrationMassive87@reddit (OP)
Agreed, very unintuitive
BlazeAlt@reddit
https://quiblr.com/
WalterFStarbuck@reddit
Fediverse is never going to take off. If the problem of social media is that we're all in echo chamber media bunkers, then the solution is not to splinter off into countless new echo chamber media bunkers.
When I came to reddit looking for THE place to talk with other people about some specific thing, it worked because it really was a centralizing power dedicated to those specific things. Bringing more people together helps those communities grow. Splintering them off into countless fiefdoms just gives people sad little molehills to police.
triangularRectum420@reddit
Federation does not aim to "solve" echo chambers, though. It aims to reduce the problem of totalitarian admins that eventually force us to leave a platform. If you want a solution to the former problem, there's only one option: >!go ourside and touch some grass!<.
As /u/Pamasich has already excellently explained, federation allows different communities with different rules, focus, etc. to interact with each other. It allows one to choose their admin. For instance, lemmy[.]dbzer0[.]com is an instance that follows an anarchist model of moderation. One can make a centralized platform with similar governance as well, but the problem is that if they suddenly turn into an insane neonazi flat-earther and enforce my views on the site, I'd have no option but to leave. By contrast, if
@db0@lemmy[.]dbzer0[.]com(the admin of the instance (and an awesome guy)) does the same, I can make an alternative instance, and not have to lose access to the content on Lemmy.Pamasich@reddit
That comparison is incomplete. In this context, Lemmy isn't just "countless new echo chamber media bunkers". Those bunkers are connected with an extensive tunnel system and people will travel from their bunker to others to partake in discussions almost all the time.
Sometimes we collapse the tunnels to some of these bunkers, but that's extremely rare, reserved to truly toxic ones or spam bot hives.
Pamasich@reddit
You can't create an audience from nothing. You're asking someone to make a popular website, but that kind of thing can't just appear out of nowhere.
I'm using both Reddit and Mbin (fediverse) currently. Reddit because Lemmy has too little content where it matters to me, but also Mbin because I want to contribute to making it a livelier place.
Any platform isn't going to get anywhere without users willing to use it when it's empty and supporting it on its way. If you want any alternative to succeed, contribute to that success.
Most people here know about Lemmy already. It's not the devs themselves reaching out of course (you shouldn't self promote on Reddit anyway, that used to be looked down upon, idk how it is today, but it doesn't fit Reddit's cultural values), but many users do.
The issue isn't reach, it's that most people are either unwilling to invest in a platform that hasn't gotten anywhere yet (like you), or they think that the fediverse (despite being no more complicated than email) is way too complicated for them to comprehend how to use it. Or they value their privacy and don't want to use a platform that sends out everything unencrypted to random servers that may or may not comply with your deletion requests later.
CelebrationMassive87@reddit (OP)
I disagree, many people were looking for alternatives a year ago (and more) and there is a widely known frustration on reddit with its shadow/over-moderation which makes this an un’democratic’ space.
the real problem with lemony is all of the over-interconnectedness. It is not simple enough and focused enough on user experience and platform growth, it needed to adapt and it has done nothing to do that (outside of now having an app)
Bluesky is simple, straightforward, and not all over the place. It is extremely effective at attracting new users who were looking for alternatives and reflected that there was a need for this alternative.
lemmy is not focused enough and straightforward. kbi/mbin felt like it had a chance, but it lost its magic when the dev left. It very well may be mbin (although I do think the branding and overall “reach” is not good enough as is) in terms of overall functionality and that it made more sense than kemmy, to me.
People are acting like lemmy is good enough right now and it’s just not. You can’t tell me people don’t want an alternative when the options are not practical/attractive/marketable.
BlazeAlt@reddit
Apps that are literally clones of former Reddit clients. Did people also struggle to use Boost and Sync?
batvseba@reddit
shut up and use fediverse. Redditors are whining because they cannot choose a server. educate yourself instead of searching for alternative that simply works. Technology is not built that way.
BlazeAlt@reddit
There is no need to be that agressive to potential new joiners.
MuscaMurum@reddit
Every time I've tried to join Lemmy, it gave me a spinning donut on the final sign up page. I tried several times and gave up.
Pamasich@reddit
Try Mbin instead if you're on Android or don't need a mobile app (because Mbin lacks an iOS app).
threelonmusketeers@reddit
Which server did you sign up at? I can try to reach out to the admins.
Mylaptopisburningme@reddit
Try a different browser?
KelbyTheWriter@reddit
Forums. We have to get out of the idea that everything has to be in a single place always available to you. The internet is a space of exploration, communication, and sometimes--a lil debauchery. I don't think the answer is to make more centralization of content. It's time to decentralize in a way that's not a misery to search through like discord is.
topselection@reddit
Having a lot of people who type with their thumbs will not make something more marketable. That's why Reddit clings to old reddit. You need a lot of people saying interesting things that other people want to read. People who post with their phones are way less likely to do that.
UnflinchingSugartits@reddit
Disagree. I'd say the biggest flaws most alternatives have are that they have no mobile app. I only... use my phone. Not just for reddit but for everything, unless I'm sitting at my desk at work.
Most people aren't sitting on their ass at home at a desktop. Most people are out going to work going shopping, living their daily life, so to have an alternative that's mobile accessible just makes sense.
It's 2025, and we are no longer tied down to having to sit next to a computer in order to use the internet.
I think desktop and mobile should both be included with an alternative. I don't think one or the other should be excluded.
Alternative should be accessible to everybody anywhere at any time. And that's what mobile apps are for it's just way too convenient.
I think pushing for desktop only Alternatives is what drives people away because they have no choice or options in how they want to use their alternative.
Die4Ever@reddit
Lemmy has tons of mobile apps https://join-lemmy.org/apps
topselection@reddit
The people that sit on their ass at home are focused though. They think about what they're going to say. A soccer mom shopping for shoes at the mall and distracted by her kids is not likely to have anything interesting to say. They're too busy with other things.
The fact that you're able to type out a coherent 200 word reply, devoid of any grammatical errors with your thumbs is impressive. But it's a skill almost no one else has.
And really, people shouldn't be reading the Internet and posting while they're out living life. Can you imagine a guy sitting at a picnic table at the park with his desktop computer? That's the dystopia we live in today. Live life and then wait till you get home to post about it.
I agree that sites should be widely accessible but I don't know if aggressively courting people who post from their toilets and encouraging them to join in the conversation is a good idea. Part of me thinks that websites should be read-only for people using their phones. The Internet really went down hill after the Blackberry crowd got smart phones and started posting all over the place.
conestoga12345@reddit
Lemmy sounds nice but requires an email address to sign up.
No_Difference_2273@reddit
Have you looked at the ChimeIn app? It’s still being rolled out but it’s looking to compile a lot of web forums including lemmy instances into a mobile app. So you get the benefits of Lemmy on mobile but it also should support a lot of other online forums in the future