Total monthly posts exploded after Spez enshitified Reddit, and is still growing steadily month over month.
That suggests that the current decline in monthly active users is primarily because lurkers who only came to lemmy after initially hearing about it on Reddit, went back to lurking Reddit.
The number of users that are contributors is still growing, and that’s what’s important.
Thanks for the positive news!!
There’s also folks like me who came, 15 years on Reddit and I haven’t been back.
Those of us who actually interacted with the platform and left aren’t going back.
Yep, arrived during the initial digg exodus, had tens of thousands of posts at Reddit, modded two subreddits. Closed my account the day during the protests and haven’t been back.
I’m not as active here, mostly due to a busier life but found a new home anyway.
I'm close to that too, but I think mine was 13 years. The weird thing that I've noticed is that most of the time I was on Reddit, almost no one I talked to in real life used Reddit. I struggled for years to try to get people to check the site out. Now that I left, I swear I hear someone I know mention Reddit exponentially more often. The average person doesn't give a damn about how shitty the platform has become, because they weren't around to see what it used to be. The average person WANTS to see ads interspersed with their cookie cutter content with stupid ass features like chat and followers. Good riddance.
I'm yet to encounter the majority of issues I hear Lemmings griping about. Everyone has been pretty civil toward me. Every time my inbox blows up I feel dread, only to open it and find zero confrontation or vitriol. I'm not running into any racists, sexists, bigots, etc., and I certainly haven't noticed a decline in content (I browse Top ~6 Hours).
I realize my personal experience doesn't equate to these problems not existing, but I do get the strong impression that people are exaggerating greatly.
Exactly my experience as well. Sure, I don't have infinite scroll, but I also don't feel like an algorithm is trying to make me angry. When I get responses, they're typically thoughtful or on topic.
I'm still seeing so much growth in new content and communities, idk if the raw number of users is the metric we even should care about. Is it the best measure of quality?
Smaller communities aren't necessarily a bad thing. Compared to reddit I rarely feel like I'm commenting into the void.
Or into the thunderdome where no matter what you say, someone will fight you for it
There's hundreds of us! Hundreds!
But hey, apparently that's enough, I haven't been bored on Lemmy yet. And as the enshittification of Reddit continues there might well be some other exodus.
Honestly there are enough quality posts and comments here that keep me engaged. It feels like a lot of creative people made the move.
honestly it's replaced reddit for me in a good way, because it has just enough new content that I can check it before bed every day and scroll for a bit, but not enough to where I spend entire lunch breaks on it. sometimes I go days without even checking it. if anything it's made my relationship with my browser / phone healthier than reddit.
Exactly. Lemmy is an anti-doomscrolling platform and that's very healthy and amazing.
Reddit is like that ex the whole lemmy isn't over yet while loudly drunkenly screaming "I'm so over them!".
Advice: focus on yourself and your content.
me unloading every meme I've ever stolen because it drives engagement
Nah, fuck spez forever. That sentiment should never die. I hope a decade after reddit goes bankrupt, he can't leave his home without getting the phrase screamed at him
Being on Lemmy make me realise I was addicted to the front page of r*ddit having something new everytime I refreshed
Now I sort by top/6hours - reduced my screen time and see more quality things
It will be sad if peoples leave but if the top stay It is enough
I've been thoroughly enjoying Lemmy much more than I did Reddit. I find it's overall less toxic and I'm therefore engaging more instead of just lurking.
One criticism, though: I really do not like the communities that use bots to copy over posts and comments from Reddit. I see no value in commenting or engaging on those posts as the original poster is not present for discussion. It's also kind of weird that the original posters are most likely not aware their post and its comments have been copied elsewhere and may be having further engagement.
Let's be honest it works for memes. Memes are 99% of the time just reposted garbage anyways.
For everything else though, I agree. Bots shouldn't be used
I'm fine with the post especially in niche communities just to keep them alive. But yeah comments seem useless.
Honestly, good. The Internet was better when people were spread out across many small message board and chat rooms. The golden age of the Internet was when you'd do a search for something and 500 different forms and little websites would pop up.
Now's it's all reddit, "X," and shitty corporate owned nonsense. We turned 2020 Internet into 90's cable TV.
I've been here for like 6 months now, maybe more. Posts SEEM to be getting more engagement than when I started. It definitely doesn't seem like there are fewer users.
To be honest I kind of like it here.
My mental health is so much better than when i scrolled reddit. Everyone here is so nice and doesn't talk like 14 year olds with an ego. Also theres front page furry porn
I also find the limited number of posts and comments keep me at a healthy level of browsing. On Reddit I could get sucked down the rabbit hole of even one post, reading comments and replying to stuff for hours. There’s really very little of value that can ever be accomplished at that depth.
Fuck u/spez and fuck Tencent.
You know what? Fuck the enshittification of the internet too.
I love how so many of us former reddit lurkers found a home on Lemmy/the fediverse. I have absolutely loved being a part of the greater community here, I don't know how else to describe it but it feels like my Internet home. I love all you fellow nerds. Obligatory fuck spez.
Organic ,non bot, actual real conversation, is not going to skyrocket. It's going to grow like a real world thing. This is good imo
I still love Lemmy. It's nice to be able to post or comment without getting an automated response telling you you're doing 15 things wrongs for trying to participate like happens on schmeddit.
How many of those that we’re losing are dead alts, bots, and trolls? I’m not that alarmed.
I use Lemmy more than I ever used Reddit. It seems to be better at finding higher quality content
Lemmy really feels like early Reddit right now. I mean that in a good way. And not to flex but I'm saying that as someone with a 16 year old Reddit account haha.
hear hear, i left cold turkey like 4 months ago, haven't looked back.
¥0U d0n'7 n33d t0 c3ns0r shit 1n h3r3. Th1s 1sn't th@t t!kt0k garbage.
Some of you who are complaining Lemmy are seeing though rose-tinted glasses about what reddit was like back in the day. The majority of the site was never good, and it had always had plenty of embarassing/messed up things on there that you had to sift through, but it's a different, sterile kind of bad now.
Here are a couple of reminders of what reddit was actually like, in no particular order.
This is why I would never admit to using reddit in public, and until recent years, I would imagine most people won't.
So if anyone complains about how the current content on Lemmy is driving people away, remember, Lemmy is positively TAME compared to this supposedly "Golden Era" of reddit.
I should post more than I do. My engagement rate is low. Reddit is no longer an option.
Even when I'm not active on Lemmy, I am not on Reddit.
If I ever need information from Reddit (unfortunately there is still a lot of information only on Reddit...), Wayback machine I go.
Even if me requesting that Wayback machine archive a page, once it's saved we don't need to give reddit anymore clicks, Wayback machine gets the clicks instead. It's better than losing information outright.
I just check every few hours instead of doomscrolling. It'd be nice to have more content and more active niche communities, but somehow I think this is better for me lmao. Anyways it feels cozier but not on the decline imo
Spez: 
I’ll be honest I still use Reddit when I’m trying to solve problems or look up niche stuff. But the iOS app is garbage… on my phone I only use Lemmy.
Alright I just created my own server with my own lemmy instance and created my first account. Let's stop lurking and push this number!
IMO the constant posts about users dropping aren't from people who want Lemmy to succeed. Anecdotally I haven't noticed a major change, still seems as active if not more than when I joined. Reddit has gotten worse and worse in that time period. I have faith.