Lemmy seems to have quite a lot of people to be fair. Apparently Lemmy.world has nearly 7,000 users a day, which is quite a lot when you think about it.

One thing I think about is that maybe there are drawbacks to the Reddit-style format of Lemmy. A cool thing about old internet forums is that posts were show in chronological order with no upvotes, which is more similar to a real world conversation. You’d read the most recent posts, rather than the most upvoted posts. This means somebody new to the conversation can have their opinion seen.

The upvoting system means that a small number of posts get nearly all the upvotes and attention, and people who post later have their posts largely ignored.

Maybe I’m wrong but it’s just something I thought about.

I personally think maybe it’s also in need of quality posts or engagement, but in larger quantities.

That said I know my post may not be quality input, but this is how I feel.

Maybe less content good? Infinitely scrolling is not great, and we all know that. Having limited content on Lemmy at allows me to at least move onto something else.

I do, yes, especially for niche communities. But other social networks aren’t the answer. Go look at what Reddit has become, or Twitter, or Facebook. It’s all junk. Half of it is AIs talking to AIs. There’s almost no meaningful conversation taking place. At least here we occasionally get some good conversations, although those are rare outside of politics and Linux.

I just wish it had more diversity.
Everyone’s a white 40-year-old born male Linux admin in here.

Yes, but also no.

More users would be great for the fediverse, in theory. Right now Lemmy (and Mastodon) can attribute a lot of their users to people unhappy with Reddit Inc. (or X) in some way. Throwing more unhappy people into the user base would probably not lead to good outcomes.

Personally I think Lemmy and Mastodon will never get the critical mass of users needed to maintain healthy communities because the only thing they have to offer is a less bad clone of an existing network.

X is bad because a malignant political demagogue is actively destroying what most people liked about Twitter. Reddit is bad because reddit inc. cares more about profit more than the needs of the user base. But the platforms they created and/or operate aren’t designed with a federated model in mind.

If the fediverse is ever going to move out of the technically savvy, early adopter nerds phase I think it’s only going to do that through something new and better than what already exists.

.world is no different than reddit so you shouldn’t expect any improvement there.

for me the lemmyverse is better so far than reddit, x, or facebooks but that’s because i spend most of mt time away from the diet reddit lemmyverse instances; maybe that’ll work for you too.

For me the biggest problem is not volume in general but volume of niche content. The best thing about Reddit was all the active, engaging communities that would sprawl around any niche subject you could imagine.

Speaking personally, while I am here, my participation in Lemmy is lacklustre at best; same with Mastodon. I got burnt out from social media and the years from 2016 - 2024 have really ruined my enthusiasm. I think maybe a lot are in the same boat. Maybe we’ll see more people come out of the “shields up, dark times overload” in a year or so… and maybe it will take longer.

Use the site less frequently and you will discover more content each time you come. I kind of like how it moves slower.

Of course, I want the fediverse to grow to. If it ever moves to fast I can always block lemmy.world and be crazy with my fellow dorks on lemmy.ml

So You Thought You Were Lying Low in a Space Forged by an Exodus from Society to Bury your Shoebox of Fake IDs but Nuance Defied Expectation, a Stone’s Tale

I wish there was more people on not-so-general communities.
If this means less meme or political posts, it would be for the best. However, more specific communities that are not part of a themed instance have very little activity. If I want to learn about ecology and its science, I know I can find many active communities on slrpnk.net, if I want content that matter to Germans, I can go it feddit.org, jlai.lu the same for Frenchs. But if I want people posting picture of nice looking sticks or find !foraging stories or connect with people doing !origami@feddit.org I know that I have to be patient and that’s to bad 'cause if people spend less time commenting US election or some shower thoughts, some people will find time and fun interacting in these communities and many others.

Idk man, in actually seen here and not drowned out

Little a comment I make that doesn’t have any interactions, I like that

For more diverse content I indeed wish, but you can’t build a healthy social network with an explosion of members without the moderation and toolings required to handle such a wave.

I’d rather be there while the Fediverse grows organically and gather my info from multiple sources the old fashioned way.

No.

I have actual internet friends here. People who, based solely on their efforts and words and interactions, align with my own beliefs and ideals and help me temper and adjust accordingly as time goes on. Adults. I’d happily stay like this or with more, similar people, growing slowly and legitimately.