Spyke
fediverse·FediversebyMicroWave

Lemmy active users grew by an astounding 1600% in June

From 2,997 active users across all lemmy instances at the beginning of June, the number increased to 52,797 by June 30th. Source.

An active user on Lemmy is "someone who has posted or commented on our instance or community within the last given time frame.” Source. That means lurkers are not counted as active users. There are currently almost 200k total users spread across the top 10 non-bot lemmy instances.

We're really building something here!


EDIT: Looking for a lemmy app? Here's a whole list: https://lemmy.world/post/465785

View original on lemmy.world
lemmy.world

Registration and discovery needs to be simplified tremendously for long term viability. But it’s a good start.

132
lemmy.world

From the outside looking in, the whole model seemed needlessly complicated. So it’s like there’s a LOT of reddit.coms over here? But they’re all the same? But also different? What’s the difference? Which one do I sign up on?

But then I get here and realized it doesn’t really matter that much, since you can more or less use all of them regardless of which one you sign up for.

Something about the way users try to communicate what Lemmy/Fediverse IS, is the complicated part. It’s like everyone wants to jump straight to the more technical details behind how the model works; which probably scares off a lot of the people who just want a place to pop in and talk about their hobbies.

73
Ryumast3rreply
lemmy.world

I just told my fairly tech-unsavvy partner the email analogy:

You sign up on Google, I sign up on yahoo, my bro-in-law runs his own from a server in his house. We can all email each other and the email looks mostly the same no matter who reads it, but yahoo isn't Google isn't my bro-in-law. Lemmy = email in general, yahoo = lemmy.ml, Google = lemmy.world, etc.

She immediately got it and has an account on some instance and has subscribed to a bunch of places.

71
???reply
lemmy.world

Yep, it's email but with a nice interface and open 'threads' which we can post on.

14

I thought the world just agreed to let Emacs die in peace...

1

This is probably my favorite analogy for it so far, at least as a high level overview. I kind of made the same connection myself and that’s when it clicked for me.

7

This is a great way to think about it! Thank you. I'll be using this to help explain it to my friends

3

This is a great way to think about it! Thank you. I'll be using this to help explain it to my friends

2

This is a great way to think about it! Thank you. I'll be using this to help explain it to my friends

1

This is a great way to think about it! Thank you. I'll be using this to help explain it to my friends

1

This is a great way to think about it! Thank you. I'll be using this to help explain it to my friends

1

Yeah, this scared me off for weeks because I didn't want the hassle. Turns out it's way easier than those dorks were making it seem!

26
lemmy.world

yeah the people running this show need to understand that normies dont care about server hosting. they just want a feed with cat pics

7
???reply
lemmy.world

Yeah, there should be simple "how and where do I sign up and find my favourite communities". I feel like there is lots of tech talk here because lots of tech stuff needs to happen before these sites are ready for the full moderation suit and for supporting the most basic aspects of Reddit communities (like flairs)...

9

There are a few ways. The easiest, albeit least efficient, is to just set your feed to show “all” and join any communities that seem interesting as you’re scrolling.

The second is to hit the “communities” tab at the top of the page, and choose “all”. This will show you a list of every community in lemmy and from there you can join whatever you want to.

Thirdly, you can use this website which is a bit more comprehensive than just using the communities tab. Some people may prefer it, others may not, it’s totally up to you.

1

Yeah I think it might be better to explain it like if anyone could boot up their own reddit and link to other people’s reddits. Some are popular, some aren’t, some don’t want to be huge because they want to be niche like some subreddits did. We may have subreddits with the same name but it’s ok because people can tell based on which Reddit it’s on. Also they’re called instances not reddits and communities not subreddits.

3

The thing that’s weird to me is that say I like football (soccer). I’m sure there are dozens of “instances” have a soccer community, but which one should I follow? It seems like this architecture fragments the user base too much.

2
Vulnicurareply
lemmy.world

Which apps? In many of them I didn't even see a way to register.

8
lemmy.world

I’m currently using the beta for Memmy on iOS. I think it’s prepping for an App Store release today. It’s a good foundation and has promise.

21
lemmy.world

Question; cuz I’ve been using Memmy too, and I haven’t had a chance to read into it much. I don’t have the ability to upvote/downvote/reply to individual comments in the app. I’m not sure if it’s a bug on my end or if he just hasn’t had a chance to implement those features yet. Do you have that same issue with it?

3

Are you using the gestures? Swipe left on a comment to reply. I’m using the app right now to reply to you

1

if you're in iphone, go to wefwef.app with safari and save it as an app, it's infinitely better than default

2

I second this. Memmy is the most stable and well developed app so far, apart from wefwef, although wefwef is only a web app currently

2

Memmy for iOS has an onboarding screen starting with ‘do you know how fediverse works’

11
sh.itjust.works

Most of the devs that worked on 3rd party reddit apps are remodeling to support lemmy. So we are about to get some really good quality apps in the next 4 to 6 weeks.

7
Hoffenreply
lemmy.world

Is there a list or overview of these hopefully coming apps? I am using Liftoff right now but it’s en beta and lacks a lot compared to Apollo. Would like to test these out when they are coming. Until then I’ll just use Liftoff and suggest features for them to add.

2
lemmy.world

I keep seeing people say this but honestly registering is really easy. It took me 5 minutes to figure out how to create an account after leaving reddit

18
lemmy.world

Well, sure, anyone posting here at the moment figured it out. But I’d bet there’s tons of people interested but intimidated.

11
lemmygrad.ml

You literally click the sign up button, fill out the form, get an email saying your application was accepted and then log in. What is complicated about that?

Genuine question.

4
lemmy.world

The complication comes from things aside from the sign-up process. It’s understanding instances and navigation. People don’t know how it works. I.e. what is the equivalent of a subreddit? Who hosts it? Is it someone’s personal server? What if it goes down suddenly? Etc.

4
lemmygrad.ml

But that's not an issue with the sign up process, so why are people complaining that it is difficult and complicated to sign up?

I agree there definitely should be somewhere that shows an infographic of how the fediverse works. I've seen this one that can be handy for people to understand.

4

This is great. This is what should be on page to choose an instance . A no nonsense guide that people can just read and get the concepts. I think content such as this is the way to go. People don't know or care why it is better in most cases but this gives them the gist in a minute.

2
Spzireply

You literally click the sign up button, fill out the form, get an email saying your application was accepted and then log in. What is complicated about that?

Coming from https://join-lemmy.org/, you need two clicks before you even see a signup button. That is two clicks on pages filled with technical talk about servers and other mostly irrelevant details. In total, you need to visit three pages with different looks, and find one specific button on each.

We don't need to agree wether it is complicated or not. We should note it's a perception many newcomers have. If we want to make life easier for newcomers, this is one area to work on.

1

I had heard about it for a week, but finally signed up when a mod I trusted on a reddit sub I used posted a sign-up link to lemmy.world. I'm somewhat tech proficient, but that extra step of figuring out a good instance to join was enough to stop me for a while. I didn't want to join a dud and have yet another dead login somewhere. YMMV, of course!

2
kbin.social

I keep seeing this said about lemmy but kbin was identical to any other site. So I looked up what the process is for lemmy and, aside from like 2 glitches to look out for it was exactly the same.

Please tell me what is difficult.

5
Lilninoreply
lemmy.world

My issue was I didn't know where to go to sign up. It took me a little time to understand the fediverse, then I had to figure out what instance I should sign up for. After that I started hearing some instances weren't accepting new accounts but didn't know if that was a thing everywhere or only one instance. I consider myself above average compared to the general public when it comes to my capabilities with the Internet and computer tech in general, it's never taken me days to understand stand how to sign up for a website like this before.

It does seem simple now that I'm here and understand things better. It's just a learning curve; this is unique to any website\forum\whatever I've played with before.

8

Same! Then you are here and switch your feed to all, and see all the posts from other instances, and its like a mind blowing experience… it didnt matter what instance you signed up for!

Its like hotmail vs netzero mail vs gmail or something.

1
lemmy.world

You have to consider that your technical proficiency is not the same as everyone else’s.

7
Ziroreply
lemmy.world

I think you're right insofar as onboarding is concerned. Once you've registered, though, Lemmy is relatively straightforward to use. Changing your user settings to display posts from ALL federated Lemmy instances on your front page helps with discoverability. That should be the default setting, but it isn't. That setting is associated with the "Type" parameter (found just below "Theme"). It isn't terribly obvious.

5

Before that setting becomes default, the "Hot" algorithm needs to get a major overhaul. It keeps spamming the top of my front page with posts that have zero comments and around ~1-10 upvotes as the results from federated instances start trickling in.

0
cerevantreply
lemmy.world

And sadly, the software seems to be little better than proof of concept quality. It seems poorly architected for functionality, usability and scalability.

-3
Stukareply
lemmy.world

UX is on par or better than reddit back when I joined. Mobile apps are certainly better.

Similar experience to reddit and apps, albeit slightly clunky.

7

Don't get me wrong - I think it is a good start, but there are some significant concerns:

  • My biggest UX complaint is that the method for connecting to a federated community is just....wrong. Do something completely unintuitive (paste a glyph / URL in search), get an error (not found), wait a while and hopefully it will start working. I can't fathom who thought this was a good idea, and I'm shocked that apparently Mastadon does it the same way. We're losing a lot of interested users at this step.
  • UX issue #2 - which may be fixed in .8, can't say - is that there is basically no error handling. Any server error or user error results in the spinning wheel of death. Sometimes refreshing fixes it, sometimes it doesn't. For example, did you know there is a 10k post limit? If your post exceeds 10k - you guessed it - spinning wheel of death. Try to sign up with a user ID that's already taken? Spinning wheel of death. Log in without verifying your e-mail? Spinning wheel of death. You get the idea.
  • I'm not an admin, but apparently that the software isn't really designed for cluster scaling. I think the assumption is that more instances solve scaling. It doesn't.
  • Functionality wise, there is very little control for mods. Pin, delete, ban. Edit the sidebar. That's it.

These are problems that can be solved, but the next step will be to see where development leadership steers the platform. It is how these problems are solved that will decide whether Lemmy or Kbin becomes the leading platform.

4
Spzireply
lemm.ee

Please make it verbose. What are you missing, what should be improved, what are your ideas and wishes?

1

See my response to the other comment here - I go into some detail there.

1
McBinaryreply
kbin.social

I disagree. At first I was frustrated that people were having so much difficulty with such a simple process, but after a while I adopted the mindset that if they're too stupid to figure out something so mundane then I don't want them here anyway. 🤷‍♂️

-10

Without diversity we are just a bunch of assholes yelling at each other about things we all already know.

7
lemmy.world

This is the important part. I’m part of the big homebrewing (beer) community on Reddit, as well as some local subs for my home area. I don’t think a ton of those users can figure it out as easily as someone like myself.

6
jtkreply
lemmy.sdf.org

It doesn't really require tech savvy, just a few minutes of reading. Anyone smart enough to have something interesting to add to a conversation can figure it out easily enough.

2
Spzireply

People can be smart in very different ways. I can navigate unknown and complicated webpages just fine, but am totally lost when it comes to crafts or many other areas of expertise I might not even be aware of. It all boils down to what you're used to.

2

So do I! I tried to help a bunch of people join and they just got frustrated and threw up their arms and said it was too hard to figure out. Like...wtf was hard about it?

1

Image Transcription: Line Graph


[A line graph is shown depicting the number of users on Lemmy over one month's time. The horizontal axis lists the date of each reading, with an interval shown for every day. The earliest date begins at '2023-05-28' and the most recent date is given as '2023-06-26'. The vertical axis measures the number of users, with intervals marked at every 5,000 users, with an upper limit of 50,000 users. There is a green trend like and a blue trend line graphed from plot points at every horizontal interval. The green line is labelled 'Active users monthly' shows increase over time. The line remains flat at approximately 1,000 users from the '05-28' date mark to the '05-31' mark, then begins to gradually increase to approximately 10,000 users, starting to show a trend similar to the beginning of an exponential growth curve. At the '06-11' date mark, the line begins increasing at a relatively steady rate, with the last marked date showing just over 45,000 users. There are two points in which the line shows an apparent indication of levelling off in user count, before then showing a sudden increase in users again, with neither of these points significantly impacting the overall upward trend. These points are at the dates '06-16' and '06-21'. The second graphed line, the blue line, is labelled 'Active Users Half year' and starts at approximately 3,000 users, but follows an almost identical trend shape as the green line as it increases approximately parallel to it. The blue line ends at around 48,000 users at the final graphed point.]


^I'm a human volunteer transcribing posts in a format compatible with screen readers, for blind and visually impaired users!^

65

The most wonderful part of this, for the unfortunately uncoordinated like me:

scrolling and accidently clicking a random card is now always a random post and not an ad launching a browser window I immediately close and curse.

It's amazing how bad it got for awhile out there.

46
kbin.social

I'm not sure it was all warm blooded. Active, warm blooded users are probably the real metric.

-1

I’m actually really impressed with how similar an experience using Lemmy is to actual Reddit. We don’t have the established communities just yet, but the platform itself seems like a really good replacement

29

Glad to be here! Lots of similarities to Reddit but without all the fluff. Almost like how Reddit used to be. Loving it here so far!

26

I can't wait for this place to blow up. Definitely missing some of my niche subs but hopefully they will appear at some point!!

24
lemmy.world

I’m in that graph, and wow my curves look good.

23

I’m in there twice! (One NSFW account and this - on Reddit I used multireddits to keep the two somewhat separated.)

1

The biggest issue with this website is the lack of basic explanation of how it works. Imo, the moment someone visits this website for the first time, a pop-up should appear explaining what this is, and how it works in maybe one simple paragraph at most.

22

Just signed up for lemmy and this already feels better than reddit. Hope it gains more traction ahead.

21

Just came over last night after RIF shut down. Might as well make my first comment here for the stats. Here's to Lemmy's continued growth.

21
lemmy.world

Here from the mass Reddit exodus! Excited for a new platform to learn and explore!

16

Happy to be here, even if I'm still confused asf as to how Lemmy works. Jerboa isn't working very well for me, but I'm super thrilled to be a part of the migration!

15

I am so new here and have generally no idea what's going on, but I an excited to be here at the beginning.

15
lemmy.world

The barrier to entry is super high but hopefully websites and apps are developed to make it easier for people to join. (Sync for Lemmy)

Let's also do out part and post/comment to add content to this website to make it appealing for new users.

15
lemmy.world

Is it really super high? It might not be very intuitive, but there’s nothing truly complicated. Maybe I’m out of touch.

5

People are over explaining it. If you didn’t explain all the federation stuff it really just boils down to 1) pick a website, 2) sign-up 3) pick communities. It’s no different from other websites. All the quirks of the federation can be learnt well after getting started.

2

It'll be interesting to see how Lemmy grows. I am also coming from reddit but I'm excited to see how lemmy's culture grows over time.

14

Refugee here. Been poking around trying to find the right place in the fediverse for ages, while lurking on reddit for pics, memes, and news. The impending death of reddit apps was just the push I need to finally make a decision. Happy to finally be here and looking forward to the expansion of a decentralized decorporatised internet

14

I am a reddit refugee here. Would love to be part of this community. Even got a user name I love than the ridiculous one I have at reddit. And this web app that you guys have built is Fucking awesome on iPhone and feels like I am using Apollo.

13

Just landed here from Reddit. I feel like I need a breakdown on how to use Lemmy and KBin and the differences and just everything in general lol

13

I wasn't bothered about joining here until my app went dark and it made me angry. Fuck 'em.

12

I didn't know what Lemmy is but since Reddit killed my Baconreader, I couldn't go support their garbage app. So this seems nice.

12

O shit dat me

Uninstalling RiF after using it for ~7 years was so surreal and heartbreaking. Now wefwef.app is my new best friend 🤝

12

I hope more communities move to lemmy, especially the mental health/support ones.

As for lemmy in general, I have to say that apart from the lack of videos, it's not bad at all, even the android apps are already better than the official reddit one (terribly slow for some reason).

12

I'm excited to see where this goes. The vibe is very different from Reddit in a good way. Hopefully one day we won't be looking back and reminiscing about "when Lemmy was good before it got ruined"

11

Thank you for welcoming us to the Fediverse. I hope we can bring more good than bad. People are so fragile and flawed, but we can try to not be assholes or own at least own up to it if we do.

❤️ Free hugs! ❤️

11

I'm glad to see Lemmy is getting so much attention, just hoping not many people give up and go back to Reddit after just 2 days lol

11

Happy to be part of the sudden stress test of your software and infrastructure! June 30 hit and I needed a place to go. Found Lemmy. Found Connect for Lemmy. I don't know if this is the future for a Reddit-like service, but I'm pleased to see some real activity and I'm glad to be a part.

10

First Post on here.

RIP RIF.

So incredibly sad, but hoping lemmy can be something special in its own right.

Using Connect for Lemmy and like what I've seen so far.

10

This is good. I had an account on here for a couple of weeks before starting to comment, so I guess I'm now an active user.

10

Using a friend's instance now, but plan to create my own instance here soon as well. Excited to see the reddit influx, I've been waiting for over 10 years to see something like this happen, tracking federation since StatusNet

10

I am so excited about what's going to happen for Lemmy, I was looking for a replacement for Reddit, and this fedverse seems to have so much potential!

10

Just moved here after Boost will no longer work with Reddit. Hope this is a nice replacement for Reddit!

10

I'm loving Lemmy, but man they have to make it a lot easier to sign up and get on a server.

10

Honestly, once apps are improving (though current ones are actually pretty nice) and more users are here - what would I be missing from reddit? Nothing. When I need old content I use Google to get it from reddit, but for anything new there is not a single feature I miss dearly (might be different for moderators).

9

Suppose this post is as good as any to comment on. According to screentime on my iphone Apollo was by far the most used app on my phone.

9

Downloaded Connect on Android and I'm really enjoying it. I hope to see Lemmy do well!

9

And it’s only going up from there! Where will Lemmy be in a month from now?

8

Getting users to come and try is great, but the real challenge is to keep them on the platform and get them to contribute. Fingers crossed!

8

Honestly I am surprised how low the total userbase is. I thought or it felt a bit higher. I switched to reddit when digg went to shit. And now I am here. Here's to another 11 years and hope shit doesn't burn.

7

So far I’m really enjoying it. There’s a lot fewer low-effort posts and comments to wade through to get to good discussion. I just hope it lasts.

7

I signed up today. It's working for me in chrome but the mlem app isn't recognizing my username or email. I'll give it some time. It was sad this morning when Apollo was dead. RIP 3rd party apps and the Reddit that lives only in memory.

7

Lemmy definitely has some kinks to work out, but I can easily see this being a far superior platform.

7

Came here after hearing that Sync is being developed for this app! Can't wait to use it. Hoping this community will keep growing 💗

6

New lemmy account checking in as active! I'll grab the popcorn 🍿

6

I want to say something like "we like the stock" without coming across as a silly reddit memelord. But we like the stock.

6

I am new with own instance. Looking around and trying a few things. Glad it is so easy to use. Any tips for starters? Thanks for the applist

6

A lot of people, myself included, are replacing their favorite app with wefwef.app as it works like RIF and the others.

App out of sight and reach, out of mind.

6

Apollo has officially gone dark, deleted it along with reddit app. I'm here now!

6

Just signed up on lemmy.world after I saw Boost for Lemmy is gonna be a thing. Like many here I'm just a tiny little bit confused, but will probably figure it out.

6

sounds good to me. will be nice to have some where to go after the implosion of reddit submarine.

6

Let's go! Leaving a comment to participate, hoping the new place can handle the traffic tomorrow.

6

Even though there might be a bot problem, there is not doubt that the community and engagement is growing really fast. Let’s see how it goes now with a predictable influx from Reddit users.

6

Guess i’ll just post to add to the numbers because I have nothing worthy to add! 😐

5

And about the same on Kbin, so the whole Threadiverse is growing quite nicely.

5

Happy to be a part of this new movement! Made accounts on 5 instances and downloaded 4 apps! Let's keep up the good work and make this the community of the future!

5

I love to see the growing numbers. The larger the numbers the more communities will be filled and the better the engagement will be.

5

Going in the right direction, can't wait to see what we can do here. Sync stopped working just now, so that's it for me, mostly desktop now.

5

Getting used to things here. Signed up with a random instance. Trying to figure out if there is any benefit to signing up with a particular instance, and if it's worth exploring for a better/closer instance to sign up with.

5

One small question, "average lemmy total users per day" is a bad metric to track, ("average active users" seems much more reliable), but is it going down because bot accounts are being closed?

5

I wouldn’t be surprised to see that number double within the next month or so.

Seems like Lemmy has positioned itself as the alternative to Reddit. Though, wouldn’t be surprised to see Squabbles gain more traction.

5

Not to be a Debra downer but until we have a way of accurately IDing bots / auto-generated accounts these numbers should have a massive asterisk on them, it's interesting but not an indicator of quality

5

I've been using reddit and RIF for 10 years. I'll probably still use old.reddit on desktop, but if they ever decide to shut that down I'm gone for good. Hoping Lemmy can be my go-to for mobile.

5

Just wait until July 31 stats with the migration in swing, hello first post for the stats.

5

Just joined Lemmy Had no idea that Sync for Reddit was going to close after the API changes. That was the push i needed to put reddit behind after 12 years.

4

I'm optimistic and also hope this is different than the whole "Voat" exodus (which in retrospect was really dumb, and fuck Voat). It's a much different situation. The technology and vibe here is good for now, and I hope it gets better.

4

Let’s hope lemmy works and continues rising! Also wefwef for lemmy is one hell of an app!

4

I joined last week and deleted my 11 year old Reddit account yesterday.

As someone who's mainly a lurker Lemmy is great. And because I'm still building my community list I take a lot less time doom scrolling 😁 So far it helps me limit my social media use.

4

Hmmm. I can't imagine why this could be happening. Perhaps we should summon in Dr. Watson to help us solve this great mystery

3

Still not 100% sure how all this works compared to Reddit

3

We're going to the moon. The mass third party migration has begun. RIP Slide for Reddit! Thanks for having me :).

3

Since RIF linked here. It's going to be millions that will see it. Remains to be seen how many transfer.

3

I will leave a little mark towards this number. Joined a few weeks ago and have been frequently lurking. Everything feels so clear to me now, we're definitely on the horizon of a brighter future!

3

Check back next Friday after people have been impacted by the outages.

Hopefully this place doesn't descend into the cesspool many Reddit subs have.

3

Rest in peace RIF, time for a new site to autoclick on mobile.

Hope this gets a lot of traction - makes a lot of sense to keep internet discussions freer on these instances than on sites just looking to cash out at all costs. Twitter and Reddit really setting the examples

3

Coming here since boost is going dark too. The internet somehow always finds a way to give you an alternative solution, grateful for places like this!

3

Today i said goodbye to Boost, and maybe even my 12yo reddit account.. and went looking for an alternative. So far Lemmy seems like a perfect replacement!

Well have to see how much traction it will get and if enough users make the switch

2

I've been enjoying the platform so far. And love how much innovation it may spur in the space.

2