I’m gonna say yes, for the exercise.
Four assumptions:
- Reddit will keep getting worse, due to the nature of enshittification and venture capital. Eventually enshittification reaches a breaking point where people leave or stop arriving.
- Lemmy (in a broad sense - et al!) will keep getting better, due to.the nature of open source software.
- Non-free alternatives to Reddit will eventually enshittify, law of enshittification.
- Free alternatives will use ActivityPub for the obvious advantages.
If these assumptions are met, given infinite rounds of enshittification and unhappy users, eventually a federated and free alternative will be the most lucrative option for the majority of users. Eventually Reddit will Digg itself a hole. Maybe Lemmy won’t take over then, but it’ll stick around.
The most unrealistic assumption is of course that the federated solutions will keep getting better indefinitely. Maybe they won’t. But as long as people keep developing and contributing to the Fediverse, it’s alive and improving in a way commercial alternatives cannot in the long run compete with.
If the API fiasco hasn’t really deterred enough Reddit users to convert, then almost nothing will. Except maybe when Spez gets around to monetizing NSFW subreddits and subreddits in general that are very large. But even then, I still say it won’t be a giant deal. They’ll come here but they’ll want the Fediverse to strongly appeal to NSFW content and really the Fediverse is fine without it poisoning itself with that filth.
Can’t say I agree with NSFW content being “filth”, but I would agree that generally it’s harder for NSFW content to find a home over here due to the increased moderation costs it brings.
I also would not think of it as filth, but I also love its absence in Lemmy. Because that stuff acts like an STD and spreads and grows, and I’d rather just leave it out.
Honestly no, and that’s okay?
Early web2 websites like MySpace did become “popular”. But IMO one of its layckings was trying out web2 by evolving something from web1’s static websites.
Where Facebook is the platform that popularized web2 in a way that worked with what web2 was and fundamentally build something new off of that.
I think Lemmy/mastatdon/most current federated clones that exist today won’t last all that long. Something that is built with federation to its core and instead of just being a feature, is central to its offering.
What is that? Not a god damn clue.
But I’m excited to try it out.
Disclaimer: not a historian. Born in the early 90s so a lot of my judgement above is bassed off of foggy memories and are my opinions and only opions.
It’s more popular than Usenet! Take that, nntp.
I don’t think the form of Lemmy as a federated service will be able to scale.
What I expect is that, if Lemmy is successful, it will be as a platform for various Reddit alternatives, kind of like how Truth Social is Mastodon.
Oh, of course. We’ll easily be just as popular as Matrix and Mastodon.
sigh
Hey, I had a conversation on Matrix that one time!
And my Mastodon feed has TONS of content from George Takei.
I’ve heard, and I haven’t tried myself, that Matrix has tons of utility between other messaging apps, sending messages to and fro or remote controlling other clients, or moderating large amounts of rooms at once.
It’s nice that it isn’t just for drugs and crypto, tho.
It’s popular with me, which is my only concern.
I clicked the wrong comment section and thought you were replying to this post
Brooklyn woman sues Subway, claims Steak & Cheese sandwich in ad has ‘200% more meat’.
It depends whether the servers can handle the inevitable next Reddit exodus.
Satisfactory had more than 1000 users this month. Popular enough in my book.
(I really need intsall Spellcheck on my device)
maybe with more porn
Not unless it gets a good marketing team.
I think it’s already popular.
Yeah, I loke ig a lot!
Not with how federation works on Lemmy.
I sure hope not
Nah. But it’s already everything I need it to be.
How do you define popular? I think it already is reasonably popular, I see enough activity here that it prompts me to comment at least somewhere on most days. I think it’s going to become more popular over time.
If I saw this question posted the first time I visited Lemmy (some months before the Reddit app drama) with “popular” being defined as the current level of activity, my clear answer would be a loud and clear “probably not”.
Current as in today? Or then-current (pre-exodus)?
I meant to say that I would never have believed back then that Lemmy would become as popular as it is today.
My point is that it’s a moving target. Reddit has a billion active users. Instagram has two billion. I don’t think these make sense as targets.
Yeah I’m pretty happy with its current activity level
