• Nobody@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I was looking for a Reddit alternative for years. I would have been cool with anything non-corporate, but figured it would take ages to build.

    It’s incredible what Lemmy has turned into so quickly. A Reddit alternative went from being impossible to actually existing within a matter of weeks.

    • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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      10 months ago

      As much as that makes a great story… The groundwork for lemmy goes back years. It’s true that lots of issues were addressed and client apps were ported after Reddit started going down hill, but a ton of work was done beforehand to make that all possible.

      • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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        10 months ago

        client apps were ported after Reddit started going down hill

        For me, this can’t be overstated. I don’t work in an office/at a stationary computer and 99.9% of my Reddit time was mobile. I checked out the “mobile apps” for Lemmy, and hated them. I probably wouldn’t be active here at all if it wasn’t for good dedicated apps like Sync.

      • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I agree with you on the technology part of it, but I’m wondering if OP meant “existing” as in how relevant of a social media platform it becomes.

    • _number8_@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Plus building it is kind of the easy part – the hard part is getting people to migrate over and having enough active posts / users that people feel it’s worth their time to stay and post as well. Migration will inevitably splinter communities as well, especially small ones, where not enough people move over (or don’t move quickly enough). I’ve seen so many alternatives where the userbase was too small or not posting enough or just right wing trolls or the site was unusably buggy. lemmy managed to be good enough in all those categories at the perfect time - when reddit spat in the face of their users.

      • Jeredin@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        It’s the niche topics that need more activity. I love science - mostly space/physics - and it’s mostly a ghost town. Once the unique corners grow their activity, it’s going to be great.

        • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          10 months ago

          I would have assumed spacey topics would sell like hot buns.
          I guess Physics are more of a niche and you would probably find more armchair physicists here than actual physicists.

        • capital@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Agree.

          Even simple things like subs for particular cars/car brands were thriving on Reddit but don’t exist here.

        • ch00f@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I wish there was a better way to port communities over here. There are people complaining that Lemmy shouldn’t copy Reddit (I say, why not?), but then there’s legitimate complaints about homesteaders running to Lemmy and snatching up all the popular subreddit names.

          • limelight79@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            There are people complaining that Lemmy shouldn’t copy Reddit (I say, why not?)

            Assuming you mean copying posts from reddit: Because, without the person that originally posted the question or topic, it feels like there’s little point in discussing the topic. I was subbed to a cycling-related community that copied every post from an equivalent reddit sub, and it had zero comments. I’d start to write a comment from time to time and it was like, “What’s the point? OP isn’t going to see this response.”

            • ch00f@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Oh, I meant more copying communities. Like people want Lemmy to replace reddit, but also to be completely unique from reddit or something.

              • limelight79@lemm.ee
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                10 months ago

                Yeah, I don’t see a problem with that. Unfortunately there’s just not much momentum in the hobby/specific interest communities yet.

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
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        10 months ago

        Regarding the content problem, I see the repost bots are still active, I wish they could be either turned off or have their rates severeöy limited.

        At first glance they make Lemmy seem active and vibrant, but since they are just bots few people vote on the posts and fewer comment on them, they post so much the any original Lemmy content in those communities gets drowned out by the bots reposting Reddit threads.

        During the influx of users after the apikalypse these bots where probably needed to not scare people that there was zero content from different subreddits, but now they just seem to be holding those communities hostage.

          • stoy@lemmy.zip
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            10 months ago

            Yeah, I know, but they make Lemmy look like a place full of fake content

      • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        Plus building it is kind of the easy part

        I mean… not entirely. I’ve been on quite a few reddit alternatives over the years. Most of them passion projects by indie devs, and start struggling the moment they hit 4 digit users. Ruqqus was nicknamed “dumpster fire” because it would go down every time a new wave from reddit came over.

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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      10 months ago

      The software existed for years, but yes the instances that popped up and the dev work to make it actually sorta stable at scale did happen quite quick.

    • kratoz29@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      It’s incredible what Lemmy has turned into so quickly.

      This couldn’t have been possible without the help of Spez and all the board responsible for the APIcalypse, thank you very much!

    • subtext@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      It’s what makes me want to donate to keep my home server alive. It’s the first open source thing that I’ve ever donated to, and I now have a monthly donation to help try to keep this alive since Lemmy is the alternative we all deserve.

    • TheDarkKnight@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Impossible? The only moat with Reddit was the userbase, the site is just a link sharing site with nested comments…