From my own experience with Lemmy, I can absolutely see why it's declining.

Lemmy is packed full of miserable people constantly calling for violence. 90% of the feed is packed full of US politics, it doesn't matter how many filters I use I still see that greasy orange cunt's face every time I open Lemmy.

The amount of hostility towards outsiders just getting into Lemmy is astounding, and I've absolutely seen the whole "quality over quantity" crap that only drives people away from the platform. The IT tech snobbery is also incredibly offputting to people who aren't tech enthusiests.

In short, Lemmy has a toxic shithead problem that a platform this small can't afford if it wants to survive long term.

It’s quality and quantity. The quality has held despite a drop in users. Just wait and let Reddit have another controversy and we’ll get another infusion of converts. Popularity may only threaten more bots and scams.

Today is my first day here and I've mostly just been wandering hobby/interest groups!

I think the biggest barrier for new users is that the whole system here is pretty complicated with the "decentralized"/"federated" model. I don't really understand what it means or how it works, and what the difference between the different servers are or what to join or even which app to use to access lemmy. There are a lot of options and complicated tech terms (like "fediverse") that you have to research just to even sign up. And I'm sure the fact that you have to write all of these long posts to explain it to people doesn't help. A platform like reddit (which I migrated from) is clean, easy to understand, and makes sense to the casual user.

As for the political stuff, I think people here should engage more with positive content. We should make the wholesome, fun stuff popular because it appeals to the mainstream. Post about the cool/funny/awesome/interesting stuff you encounter every day; talk about the arts, your hobbies, your funny life fuck ups, your pets, etc.! In my exploration today I noticed those kinds of communities barely get any interaction whereas the news/political ones are always active.

I'll commit to commenting more. I prefer to lurk, but the fediverse needs me 🤣

Part of the issue (I feel a large part ) is that the learning curve is too steep to get on Lemmy

Now I'm not saying it's hard at all; but it's significantly higher than simply "go to a main page and create a user name and password". Lemmy needs a sign up page that just random signs you up to an active instance (per the instances permission) and automatically subscribes you to the 50 most active instances to just get you started up.

Making a getting started page that's as idiot proof as any .com would probably go a long ways into upping our numbers here.

I've been using Lemmy less because it's so depressing. It feels like a majority of the engagement is with depressing US politics and a strong left bias (to be clear, I also hate the current government). Unlike most, I really like most of the nerdy tech content.

Which is why I've been lurking more on Hacker News lately, it's tech minded forums with an appropriate level of politics and more nuanced takes. And as a bonus the interface even less bloated (in terms of resource usage) than any Lemmy frontend I've tried.

The source data shows that while active users are down, the number of posts and comments are near all-time highs. While you need new users to help counteract churn, I think the higher post/comments count points to what I think a lot of people feel here: that quality seems to keep getting better and better.

Regarding how to bring more people in, I personally like how different lemmy servers have slightly different characteristics but each seems to appeal to larger groups. I see a future where there’s probably a small-ish number of large servers that cover broad groups of people.

Do comments help also or we need to post topics etc.

Is this strictly Lemmy or does it include related platforms like PieFed and Mbin? Because it seems like there has been some shift to PieFed

I came here looking for something different than Reddit but I’m actually pretty done. I try to post, start threads and conversations but the ones that don’t get deleted because of some vague rule get questioned to hell as to why it exists that it makes me wish I hadn’t posted at all.

A) "Lemmy" is an embarrassingly bad name.

B) Most of the content I see on here seems to be shitposts. Not saying it all is, but the immediate impression for new users is terrible.

C) Lemmy's biggest strength is also its biggest weakness. Moderation is near non-existent and the comment section of posts always devolves into shit.

I’m feeling very burnt out. Lemmy is kinda an endless stream of political doom and gloom. For context, I’m in the US and already stressed out by our political situation. But I don’t come here to see more doom and gloom. It’s getting to the point where I think I need to get off for my mental health.

Then there are all the people who if you don’t agree exactly with their opinion they downvote you to hell. You have left leaning politics but not my flavor of left? Downvote! You hate enshitification and big tech privacy practices, but you use a single piece of software that isn’t FOSS? Downvote!

It’s so exhausting. I absolutely hate Reddit but I miss going on there and just laughing at how someone’s TV is too high. I miss laughing at how some restaurant serves food of shovels instead of plates.

And that’s not even getting into the lack of content. That part I understand requires users like myself to be as active as possible. But it’s hard being active when I feel so burnt out from the other stuff here.

Tbh, idk if these issues are specific to Lemmy or just the internet as a whole. I can only speak to the slice of the internet I find myself in. But I just wanna see people that are excited about things: photography, 3d printing, weird keyboards, etc. And that exists here, but it’s drowned out by all the doom and gloom.

Just talk up Lemmy, the issue is most people doesn't realize there's another option to the popular toxic trash fires.

…I am drifting away from Lemmy myself.

Political communities are echo chambers like Reddit, in a different color. Discussing tech or helping others is better, but still feels like talking in circles.

Wholesome subs like /c/SuperBowl are sublime, but I mostly lurk there.

Information hygiene is awful. Big subs upvote tabloids and Tweets to the sky, as long as they align with their beliefs. I just saw a discussion on a not-obviously AI generated photo with the community sentiment of “misinformation? Who cares. It’s a pro-lefty meme, so spread it.”

Anyway, all this scrolling and impulse commenting eats time. I get the same feeling of shouting into a black hole that I get on corporate social media.

Much of this is my fault, though.

I have several niches I intend to make original posts for, but never do.

It’s somewhere in the giant pile of my IRL executive dysfunction :’(

I tell people about lemmy and send them links. Mostly people don't care about anything. Abstract or remote things like "should a platform be owned by one asshole?" just doesn't even enter their brain.

I think posting quality content (or at least trying to be quality content hahaha) and good comments keep the users visiting back.

I just try to post one or two posts a day (to not spam things), comment a little bit, it seems it grows some communities on our instance. Some communities were dead, now at least some people post at these places.

I’m happy to promote it. I tried to get a few non-technical people to check it out. They felt it was too complicated. I’ve shared it with tech friends and coworkers who use Reddit. They’re aware of Lemmy to varying degrees, and are not enthused about moving to another platform despite hating Reddit.

I think it’s because despite Lemmy being a great alternative, it is more complicated and lacks the user base that users of other social media platforms have.

Bluesky is marginally more complicated than Twitter, but compared to Mastodon it is user friendly. Bluesky worked to create a dedicated, easy to use app that most users use.

Bluesky existed for a while before experiencing explosive growth. This occurred during moments of controversy with X. Bluesky capitalized on these moments, with champions on both platforms that led their followers to change, and there were mechanisms in place to bootstrap a user’s feed with the followers and topics that they had in the other place.

I think Lemmy needs to follow this model. There needs to be a Lemmy app that has a user experience as similar as possible with the Reddit app. It also needs champions that have main stream recognition (George Takei, Mark Hamill, etc.) that can be willing to make noise about switching from Reddit to Lemmy when the next controversy occurs. Repeat with more and more promotion by this evangelists, and Lemmy could grow.

Reddit refugee here. I've been banned three times in 2 weeks for erroneous applications of nebula's policies. They appear to be going through a self-destructive phase. All you need to be is a viable alternative to a dumpster fire and deliver a clear valuable alternative.

What is that spike in activity in December, I wonder? I see a similar increase in December of 2024 as well, although there it remained sustained instead of dropping.

I hate that it's true but the people on the Threadiverse are toxic as fuck. I have almost universally always regretted making posts here, so I primarily stick to comments.

This in turn is due to the fact that the moderation tools suck ass - I hope PieFed will offer some strong hope for that, but as it is only a small percentage of the Threadiverse uses it.

PieFed also offers some hopes in other ways too - e.g. highly contentious users (who let's say receive 10x more downvotes than upvotes) have labels attached to their username. It doesn't block any content, but it helps new users from other platforms realize what they are getting into, if e.g. they engage with a known sea-lion.

And PieFed helps in so many other ways besides - e.g. a recent addition will automatically convert URLs pointing to other instances into one that will work on your home instance, where you are currently logged in and so can vote, reply, bookmark, or whatever. Lemmy will probably never add all the various features that PieFed even already offers - like post and user flairs, polls, combining comments across all cross-posts, and things like that that even Reddit does not offer. I don't mean to be annoying about all this but I said it to help illustrate: look at all that PieFed offers, and yet how many people remain on Lemmy? Now you understand a tiny bit better why someone remains on Reddit.

Plus Reddit is where the content is, and the user base too, so why would content creators want to post their stuff here, only to get trolled in the comment section? The Left always eats its own - and it rejects even more all the centrists and even ring-wingers, i.e. mainstream non-technical normie users i.e. the vast majority of content creators, who don't like to visit a Nazi bar (even a leftist tankie flavored one) and be told how they didn't vote properly or hard enough.

You said it yourself: you were one of those very people who did not want others to come. What could you possibly have said to your past self to have changed your mind earlier?

Hot take: the biggest issue is actually ever entering a community and seeing zero comments. Most reddit addiction stems from wanting to read comments, so I think people should add a comment to something if they're upvoting and they see that the thread has zero comments.

Nothing eliminates enthusiasm like seeing 0 comments on every post in a community, especially if that community is driven by bots.

I think that if we want new folks, it would make a big difference is we organized the equivalent of a new member drive.

Currently, look at a default front page for your home instance and ask how enticing it is to a total newbie. There might be some good stuff, but it's foreign and overwhelming. You feel out of place.

Now imagine if the first Friday of January had been "new subscriber day". People on Reddit and Bluesky are taking about the fediverse and if it's any good. And on Lemmy there's a bunch of posts about finding the best instances and memes about being new on Lemmy. That's a much more inviting beginner experience, and it makes it more likely for folks to come back the next day.

I really think planning for bursts of new folks is the way to welcome people.

Here's my approach: over the holidays I suggested lemmy to 3 people I know. I did so by emailing or texting them links to the following piefed feeds of lemmy communities:

• https://piefed.social/f/highsignal
• https://piefed.social/f/highmemecontent

The first is non-political, non-tech, low-meme communities (tho sometimes those topics sneak in.) The second is non-political, non-tech meme/humor communities. One peson said they thought it was neat, the other said they bookmarked it, the third didn't say anything. Dunno if they joined.