I have never been an "online community first" person. The internet is how I stay in touch with people I met in real life. I'm not a "tweet comments at celebrities" guy. I was never funny enough to be the funniest person on Twitter. So when Twitter was accidentally purchased

It became the only reliable source of information I had. People posted links with a minimal amount of commentary, picking and choosing the best content from other social media networks. They’re not doing it to “build a brand” because that’s not a thing in the Fediverse. It’s too disjointed to be a place to build a newsletter subscription base.

  • fizzbang@lemmy.worldEnglish
    186·
    8 hours ago

    People complain about Lemmy having limited content and engagement. Not in this article so much. I’m sure there were fewer posts in the past too. But what I found is that there are real people on here and you don’t have to wade through bots and shills which makes this community feel much more whole to me.

    • badgermurphy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      58·
      6 hours ago

      While that’s true, I don’t believe it to be a fundamental property of the medium or federation in general. I think what we are experiencing is the result of lack of mainstream attention and traffic.

      The people here are much less demographically diverse than the public at large, and have intentionally sought out this space and others like it, so they have more of a sense of ownership and community about it. The more attention it gets, the more the demographics will change to reflect the broader public, and the more it will become like a public space, complete with all the ills that come with that, like advertisers vying for attention, shills posing as enthusiasts, and influencers saying what will get them the most followers, rather than what they think.

      I believe it would take extensive moderation and amazing tools to keep places like this the same as they gain users. I haven’t ever seen a community survive that kind of growth and retain its original spirit, but I also haven’t seen one with no profit motive. If we can get the moderation tools where they need to be, there could be hope!

      • thethrilloftime69@feddit.onlineEnglish
        4·
        3 hours ago

        I think even if shills, bots and influencers gain traction in the fediverse, it’s still better than reddit or Instagram because of federation. There won’t be one corporation algorithmically feeding you ads. You can curate your experience more than you can on another platform.

      • errer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        5 hours ago

        I think the community is a good size right now. Popular enough that we guarantee getting any content of relevance I care about, but not popular enough to have all the problems you mentioned. I hope the community stays this size and off the radar indefinitely.

      • cinoreus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        6 hours ago

        True, Lemmy feels this way almost exclusively because it’s small and hasn’t been noticed by mainstream media enough. The second that changes this place will become what reddit was pre-ipo.

        • PlantJam@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          5 hours ago

          My hope is that it will always be a little too disjointed to hold that kind of attention for long.

      • notfromhere@lemmy.mlEnglish
        14·
        6 hours ago

        I really do not understand all the .ml hate. If you have it so much why are you using their technology (Lemmy)? So much bullshit being reposted as fact. Basically echo chamber brigading. I left Reddit to escape this shit…

        Edit: although judging by your post history you lack conviction and joke about everything, so maybe I missed the mark

                  • notfromhere@lemmy.mlEnglish
                    4·
                    5 hours ago

                    Lemmy isn’t compatible with Reddit. Piefed is literally implementing Lemmy’s data structures to specifically be compatible with Lemmy.

                    So since your stated goal is counter to reality, I have to wonder what your real intent is. I only see this drama as weakening Lemmy and Piefed by extension, not strengthening anything.

              • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.worldEnglish
                3·
                2 hours ago

                PieFed keeps track of how many upvotes and downvotes you give, displays that on your profile and if you downvote too much it takes away your downvote button. That happened to me after a weekend of use. This is Lemmy. There’s a lot here that needs downvoting.

        • Telodzrum@lemmy.worldEnglish
          10·
          6 hours ago

          Of you hate it so much, why are you using their technology?

          Oh boy, this isn’t a question you want being asked of people (yourself included).

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      5·
      5 hours ago

      Yeah, there’s definitely still some bullshit and editorialized clickbaity headlines to sift through, but it’s not nearly as much and overall the content here feels much more human.

      There’s just not much incentive to generate engagement for the sake of it (unless you’re funhole), and far fewer bots and bad-faith trolls in general. Not to say there’s none though.

    • solrize@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3·
      5 hours ago

      Lemmy as far as I can tell is mostly dup posts and blind links, especially links to youtube. The absence of Spez is of course priceless, but otherwise Lemmy is duller than plenty of single-issue blogs or forums, or even the still-decaying corpse of Usenet. That article is about Mastodon, which has a different crowd than Lemmy does. I’m not big on the “follower” model though, so I’m not there very much.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      5 hours ago

      As soon as there is “unlimited” content, the vast majority of said content is shit