This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.
Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.
What can we do?
This is why email never caught on. Who wants to choose between Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, Proton, and Comcast? A successful email service would be one where you can only communicate with users of the same email service. /s
Don’t over think it, the people who want to be here will be.
Hard disagree. The entire point of Lemmy is to move away from Corporate run, Billionaire run, Millionaire run, social media (which Reddit is). Without attracting new users Lemmy will almost certainly perish. It’s goal should be a low bar to onboard new social media users coming from places like Reddit, Facebook, X.
Saying “Not our problem” is a woefully shortsighted.
If a small, one time pop-up designed to solve your problem makes you give up on solving your problem then you were never going to solve that problem.
Unpopular opinion maybe but I like Lemmy and lemmy users and I’m glad that we’re a bit different from Reddit. At least in my experience it feels a bit different.
Nothing, this seems like a good thing, I don’t want them here if they literally cannot even comprehend the concept of different servers, though somehow no one has this issue with discord even though it’s dogshit, almost as if they just yearn for the corporate boot.
Lmao, so true. Buhh my user experience!! As if consuming endless amounts of garbage on reddit is a good experience.
I was on Sync for Reddit before going here, and checked out Lemmy as the devs switched platform. So the joke’s on them, my UX is basically identical.
That said, sucks that people shy away because of complexity.
The comments here are smug as fuck.
Why do we want more users? Because lemmy is insufferable. Im here, like many others, waiting for an alternative to reddit and hoping im already there.
No we dont need gatekeeping based on a users understanding federated servers. We need more people so the smaller communities actually have posts and we dont need to scroll the dumpster fire that is “everything”.
Have you tried https://piefed.social/ ? Compatible with Lemmy (allows you to import your subscriptions list actually) and with a different approach: https://join.piefed.social/blog/
I dont know what you are talking about. What subscriptions am i adding to where?
It’s why my less “tech savvy” friends won’t join. They don’t understand what federation is, and No they don’t want to take 2 minutes to learn.
It’s annoying, but it’s reality. People don’t understand the whole different servers thing, federation, and how to pick one.
I realize marketing isn’t a strong suit (nor should it be), but I’m proposing two solutions (well maybe not solutions, but something to help):
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A quick animated video showing the benefits of Lemmy and how this all works (if it hasn’t already been done yet)
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A service that basically simplifies and centralizes the signup process to one screen. During server selection, users can see the most populated servers and click on them to learn the specific rules for the server, etc.
Idk, maybe we already have all this…or this is just complicating the issue. Or maybe we only want people willing to take 2 minutes to learn about how it all works. Tbh that’s a pretty good natural filter for the types of users I want to be interacting and discussing with.
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Try not caring. The more Reddit users come here the more it’s going to suck.
This is just bot-driven FUD anyway, Lemmy is nothing like old Reddit and it wouldn’t be disqualifying if it was.
Wait wait wait… This implies people like new reddit… That shit makes my eyes bleed wtf
You can’t do anything because these excuses are window dressing and not the core of the issue. The core of the issue is that 99% of people are incredibly unwilling to change their habits or spend five minutes to wrap their heads around how things work. If the question of which server to join is too much, this kind of space isn’t for you.
No, having a full time job or a family is not an excuse to not learn how computers or the internet or networks in general work. You’ve had a lifetime to learn and are willfully ignorant. If you just give up and run away the moment you have to apply two braincells to understand a new concept, your cognition is fucked.
Im personally fine with basic competence and tech literacy to be a natural gate keeping the unwashed morons out. Lemmy is growing at a fine pace without catering to the lowest common denominators.
The core issue is none of my hobbies exist on Lemmy. I tried really hard to populate those instances but there were just 3 (three) people engaging in discussions. What even is the point?
Three is better than none. as long as the community exist and has some kind of activity even one post a month with three comments, you are doing your part to create a viable home for those who share your niche interest. In three months you might get up to 6 people, in 9 months 10, one year later 15. Its difficult going from passive consumer to one of the few active posters but you truly are adding value to the space just by trying.
Lemmy users like to present lemmy vs reddit usage as all or nothing, its not. Realistically you still use reddit for the niche communities that arent getting much interaction here. I do for locallama and dynavap. But ideally you cross post to the lemmy communities to add content here too so that those like you have a better chance to find a home.
Hot take - I don’t blame them. The who’s federated with who and who can see what, and how it works is confusing as absolute fuck and extremely poorly explained.
I’m going to be holding a teach-in about the fediverse. AFK I mean. Like the people I live with, and am in community with in meat space. They all want to ditch corpo social media, but aren’t sure how. I’ll hold a digital one too for my more extended community, but I want to start with the people I truly live with. I think word of mouth is a great way to onboard people as it allows for a dynamic level of handholding. This is essentially “grassroots” social media after all.
I don’t really want Reddit to join Lemmy en masse. I want the people that see the value of pre-2010 social media, and the “local” internet, to understand and have access to these tools and spaces. I think that will be best done through education, not advertising. Advertising the platform is exactly what all the platforms we want to ditch do, and we are actively trying to not be those platforms.
The sense of “needing” more users, to me at least, is a hold out of the “infinite growth”, capitalist, mindset. I don’t want infinite growth for my instance, I want the people it’s made for to find it, and enjoy communicating with the people they share it with.
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Well yeah, which server do they want to join? Maybe sample servers that reset every day would be useful?
Couldn’t we design an “onboarder” where when you get started on lemmy, a “let’s get you started” wizard asks you 2 or 3 questions and based on your answers, it proposes 2 or 3 servers (or directly assigns you to one)?
join-lemmy.org already has this in a way:
The problem here is that those are filters, and the newcomer will usually still be faced with several options, which will still make them scratch their head.
A wizard is a good idea, with simple questions, rather than filter buttons.
But it needs to end up telling you “here you go, this is the one you want!”, giving you just a single instance. Doesn’t matter that multiple will probably match the answers given - then just pick one at random. Chances are, they will be equally happy on either, and if not, well, it isn’t very hard to switch to a new instance later on, when they have become regular Lemmists.
Join-lemmy suggests outdated and defederated instances: https://lemmy.world/post/24220536
Thanks for sharing! Very much aligned with what i have in mind… Only difference would be to narrow down to 1 or 2 (if at all) on the landing screen - maybe all other options are under a “advanced user? Click here to expand server selection” or something like that…
Join-lemmy suggests outdated and defederated instances: https://lemmy.world/post/24220536
I usually go with https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/37336391
I agree, but people (read: instance owners) might disagree who gets to be seen up top and who won’t make that cut.
It’s a tough dilemma in itself, I will say. In the end, I think we should move this part of the joining experience until after new users are familar with the software.
So new users land at “lemmy.noob” or something, and when they are ready to spread their wings, they can choose the things I showed above to go and find the right home for them.
Centralization detected
Good point. I don’t have all the answers to this predicament, but I think most of us agree that we need to improve on the onboarding experience.
Something like this sounds great
