this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Was there even a mass exodus? I largely avoid Reddit now, but I do kind of doubt that they've been hurt in any meaningful way by all the protests and people leaving...

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[–] Phegan@lemmy.world 100 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Honestly, I don't really care. I like it here more than reddit and if it stays like it is, awesome.

I have no desire to see reddit succeed or fail, I simply found a place I fit in better.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

I agree but I still want Reddit to burn πŸ˜‚. But I'm an asshole so that's okay.

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[–] GoddessOfGouda@lemmy.world 53 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (5 children)

Personally I came over bc the app I used stopped working (boost). Lemmy seems to have the same content I used reddit for:

  • US politics headlines
  • Memes
  • Niche communities

I don't plan on going back to reddit unless it's via Boost. Fediverse is better anyway

[–] DAMunzy@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

Poor one out for Boost! I'm on the waiting list for his new Boost for Lemmy. Can't wait.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubenmayayo.lemmy

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[–] Cirom@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 years ago

Can't wait for Boost for Lemmy to release.

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[–] bratorange@feddit.de 42 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Is it important that Reddit suffers? For me the important thing is that lemmy flourishes and has good oc.

[–] FierroGamer@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 years ago

I support this point of view, but at the same time I want the status quo to be disrupted and the internet to change, I'm not a fan of allowing corporations to fall into complacency when they hold so much power.

[–] Jagermo@feddit.de 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Right? Ignore them, have fun here. No reason to give any thought to them.

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[–] BrainisfineIthink@lemmy.one 7 points 2 years ago (12 children)

This is what I wish more lemmings would grasp. I've commented before how there's this disillusionment that reddit actually died when a bunch of people left. It didn't. The sooner everyone can stop being in denial about that, the better.

The situation is really more akin to an abusive ex and the people that left realizing that they're better off without them. You're in a better place. Stop talking about, focusing on the drama that your ex brought and just embrace your newer better environment.

Millions of people are in that situation and don't leave because they've been manipulated, they're scared, and in this case addicted. My brother in law switched from Apollo to the official app and hates it, complains every day, and says reddit sucks now...but won't leave.

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[–] legion@lemmy.world 37 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I didn't leave to make the service worse.

The service got worse, and so I left.

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[–] SageWaterDragon@lemmy.world 31 points 2 years ago (2 children)

No, of course not. If you're using Lemmy as a "protest" instead of thinking that it's a better platform, it's totally ineffectual and you'll go back to using Reddit sooner or later. Personally, I think that the fediverse is a more compelling idea than the traditional internet, so I'm sticking with Lemmy for a bit in one form or another.

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[–] PagingDoctorLove@lemmy.world 30 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I don't know if I'd call it a mass exodus, and I don't know that it directly has anything to do with Lemmy, but there's been a noticeable dip in quality. Fewer posts across many of the front page subreddits, fewer votes, more bot posts, more low effort posts, less discussion in comment sections, lots of deleted comments and accounts... overall there just seems to be a dip in quality.

I was going to delete, but decided to stick around for a while first, to see how things pan out, and I've got to say the mobile site is even worse than expected. I get constant pop ups trying to direct me to download the app, then when I say no the website will auto reload, often sending me back to the top of the page. It's difficult to find and respond to anyone who replies to your comments, and sometimes if you sort by top: today it won't even show any posts. Just... blank. Clicking on a post opens it as a tab that is more like a popup, and closing it resets where you were on the page.

I could keep going but I think that pretty much summarizes what I've noticed. Don't know that it's directly related to a Lemmy "exodus," and I'm still finding my way around here so I can't really say, but reddit as we knew it seems pretty dead.

That’s actually what some of us were predicting would happen. We would expect a metric like β€œquality posts per user” to follow something like the 80:20 rule - 80% were created by 20% of the users. If those users and mods were skewed in the direction of the strongest detractors/leavers, you’d find the average quality would indeed go down.

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[–] AnonymousBaba@lemmy.world 28 points 2 years ago (1 children)

it was about hurting the reddit ? i thought it was about finding a good alternative

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[–] arc@lemm.ee 20 points 2 years ago

I don't think any platform collapses overnight. What you have to do is do is make something "better" and engage in a campaign of attrition to get people to move over. Produce content that other visitors see and like. Submit links to that content to aggregators (e.g. Slashdot / Fark etc.). Even start submitting links on Reddit that lead over to Lemmy and so on.

Make Lemmy feel as normal as Reddit. People will get used to the interface, the quirks and perhaps stay. Every person who stays is one less for Reddit. Now "better" is doing some heavy lifting since Lemmy has some advantages (ad free, federated) and some disadvantages (inline media & limits, sign up confusion, app). The disadvantages need to be addressed and the advantages need to be made stronger.

[–] ZachAR3@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago

I found a large amount of the developer / programming reddits died, so I noticed a large difference but a lot of other subs there has been no change so it depends on what you are in.

[–] Swarfega@lemm.ee 14 points 2 years ago

I doubt there's been enough people moving to create an impact. I used to visit Reddit multiple times a day but now it's once a week if at all. When I have looked all my old subs look no different really.

[–] voidMainVoid@lemmy.world 14 points 2 years ago (5 children)

No idea, and I don't care. What matters for me is that there are enough people on Lemmy to keep it interesting.

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[–] Hardeehar@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

For sure the quantity of posts is the same, but the quality has gone down.

You can just feel it all over. My frontpage has little to no good topics anymore. I used to peruse for at least 30 mins easily losing myself. I barely get 5 now before getting irritated with the low effort material.

[–] teydam@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I mean I try to go on reddit and the content just isn't what I am looking for. I know this is true for all of you. I know the internet is changing and fediverse things are the future. I am glad to be off the mainstream stuff and digging around in the weeds with folks who might give me a ride hitchhiking. I like to think of it like all the reddit traffic are people who would never give you a ride if you had your thumb out, but the people here would be the types that are more willing to take that risk and make a new friend. Overwhelmingly, hitchhikers will not hurt you and everyone has a great time. Dispelling the fear we live with is what this is all about too.

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[–] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Profit wise, absolutely not. However, they are probably losing their most technical users. Generally the ones that have some sort of tech background or knowledge and see through their BS, and who are also much more likely to support open source alternatives (and third party apps) and have an easier time figuring out the fediverse. Maybe they care about that, maybe they don't (probably don't).

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[–] Daisyifyoudo@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Can't speak for anyone else, but as soon as RIF died I was gone. Was on it for over 10 years, and the only way I would view reddit content. Reddit's ui is cancer.

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[–] AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 years ago

We came to Lemmy for our own benefit, not just to fuck with reddit. Who cares if it hurt them or not? We're better off without reddit, and that is all that matters.

[–] Cipher22@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (8 children)

Several major subs have closed, they're forced to campaign to keep mods, a significant amount of content generators have left. Even though it's been only a couple weeks, they've slid on the global index of visited sites. They've lost 3-4% of 1.7 billion views in weeks. That's 10's of millions of ads not delivered. That alone is several million dollars lost on a site trying to be profitable. This doesn't include people on the fence, people currently unaffected because their app didn't die until this week, or people just watching the drama until it's boring again. Also, Reddit depends heavily on free labor to succeed, the bulk of the community that is leaving is their free labor pool. They don't have the cash to pay moderators for their time and they just removed the tools that let those people do their work.

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[–] SHamblingSHapes@lemmy.one 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Their user numbers are available with a web search. Reddit useage dipped towards end of June but has mostly leveled out.

Quite a few mods left, which has had a larger impact than an equal number of general users leaving would. The niche topic sub I was involved in went from four mods to one half-hearted mod. The quality of posts has dropped. Almost every comment thread contains complaints. Reports are piled up.

Most surprising to me when I peeked at the sub this weekend was the amount of borderline-incel desperation and negativity. The sub is for a hobby that while slightly male majority, we had plenty of women contributing with minimal problems. Not anymore. If I were a woman looking at that sub for the first time, I would probably block it. It is so depressing and angry now, I barely recognize it.

[–] nathris@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 years ago (5 children)

I have to wonder how much of Reddit's traffic is bots and lurkers though.

Post quality is a bigger indicator, and that does seem to be dropping. This is why Reddit banning 3rd party apps was such a big deal. It doesn't matter if 99% of your users use the official app if 99% of the content posted to the side is posted by the 1% that don't.

As someone who was around for the digg migration, it didn't drop off overnight (hell digg.com is still around), but they gradually bled content until everyone was on Reddit. Lemmy right now is very reminiscent of early Reddit.

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[–] AngryBear@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Lemmy right now is too.. well not clumsy exactly, but it does feel vague with all these seperate iterations like .world or .ml and they are seperate and require seperate logins etc so that’s not handy at all. People are used to ease of use, this is where (for now) Reddit remains king.

[–] Syndic@feddit.de 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Lemmy does have a problem where people don't get the idea behind it. But it's not required to have seperate logins for instances which are federated. This very post I do with my @feddit.de account and when you check other user names you'll see users from other instances as well.

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[–] TwoGems@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

No because no matter what the fediverse will have to make this all much easier for people. Instances just are too confusing

[–] what_is_a_name@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The point is not an overnight collapse. It’s gradual rot.

Reddit (Twitter, Facebook…) all exist because they created a monopoly around their service. Reddit through their incompetence created a competitor. They will have to work so much harder to make their ends meet now that there are alternatives. Worse yet, the viability of Lemmy will spawn other efforts.

Look at Twitter. Between Mastodon and Bluesky they are eroding. They have to beg advertisers to stick around. At the same time there is a bakers dozen of other efforts underway all creating a new landscape. Twitter was the king and now they are rapidly becoming one in a pool of microblogging services. They will wither.

Reddit just popped it’s monopoly and will also fail.

[–] Kushia@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago

The right-wing troll posters have gotten bolder and more prominent in subs I used to visit that's for sure. They used to get heavily downvoted and people used to rebut their garbage, but much less so now.

[–] soulifix@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (10 children)

If we're perfectly honest - No.

Reddit has over 53 some odd million users. Million with an M. Lemmy has gained, at most, upwards of just thousands. To call it a 'mass exodus' is really overselling it.

It's going to take a fairly long time, for Lemmy to even scratch 100k even. I'm on both Reddit and Lemmy. Lemmy, for a more positive experience. Reddit, because the numbers are just there.

[–] althea_vestrid@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (4 children)

This crisis has given Lemmy enough users to be a vibrant, viable alternative with the software and apps undergoing rapid development. This means the next time that reddit tries to pull some shit, there will be somewhere for people to go, unlike this time. Lemmy just wasn't really ready for prime time.

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[–] pinwurm@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The content on Reddit has gotten noticeably worse - but less as a result of Lemmy's existence and more of a reaction to killing 3rd Party Apps.

Unfortunately for me, some of my favorite communities haven't migrated over to Lemmy. So I'm still using Old Reddit Desktop to access them.

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[–] Chadarius@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

I'm deleting all of my posts and comments on Reddit :). I did find Reddit very useful in many ways. That was when I was a participant in the system. Now Reddit is going to make me a revenue generating serf. So I noped right out of there just like I did with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

I know lots of users are doing them same. Reddit would get lots of exposure from Google searches to useful information that users had posted. They are selling ads on the backs of these users that posted useful information. If I remove my posts (useful or not) they can't be used for revenue.

So at night I slowly go through my profile and delete posts and comments while I watch a show.

[–] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

I personally visit Reddit less than I did previously. And from the subs I was part of there does seem to be a drop off in new posts that are not the usual begging for help or complaining about how "x" (not the artist formerly known as Twitter) sucks just to bitch.

So there is still a lot of traffic there and content created, it is just more slanted to the mindless type of content than it was before in my experience.

[–] ComptitiveSubset@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Fuck Reddit. I’m here now and it’s great.

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[–] jayemecee@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The effect is going to be long term. The most active users (usually 10% posters, 1% content creators and mods) were the most affected by the changes. Those are also the most vocal. And, probably the first ones to move here. Once those move reddit content will get worse over time which will make the other users move (89%) too. So yea, don't expect short term impact. It's the long run that matters

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[–] Vaelea@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I deleted my account and have gone cold turkey. It sucks not googling stuff with β€œreddit” at the end because honestly a lot of great answers to things are there

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