Technology

I don't think so. If you look at Mastodon it could actually keep most of its users and still seems to be growing.

Of course I don't know what the future holds for us.

I think Lemmy specifically doesn't fall victim to the issue of certain news agencies and personalities being exclusive to the platform as much as Mastodon does with Twitter. You can get the same news here as long as someone is there to post it, but that's where Lemmy is a bit behind at the moment: we haven't hit that critical mass of users such that smaller communities have enough content to sustain themselves. Maybe the platform isn't ready for all those people quite yet either; I think the software has a little maturing to do before mass adoption would happen.

I’m currently not interested in going back to Reddit but “quantity has a quality of its own”. Yeah there were bad spots on Reddit, but so many well developed communities, and most niches found enough people for regular activity. I have yet to find anything like r/askHistorians anywhere. r/CastIron was active an interesting , vs practically dead here, etc

I came here due to the reddit drama and I'm definitely staying. Just like you, I like it here. The hardest part was actually making the switch, creating an account and finding communities to join. Now that that's out of the way, I really have no reason to go back. Reddit has become a hostile place, admins are actively fighting users and especially mods and I just don't feel comfortable there anymore.

It's like going to a restaurant where the owner is hitting the waiters and some of the guests. Doesn't matter how good the food is, doesn't matter if they're hitting me or not, I'm never going back to that place.

I know I'm definitely not going back to Reddit. Ever since I found and joined Lemmy, I've been happier than I was on Reddit.

According to numbers shown on https://fedidb.org it basically already has. Monthly Active Users is only about 17% of total users.

This kind of retention rate is not uncommon in free social services.

Anyone think Fediverse active userbase is going to fall as much too, only slower?

I don't think so, people who joined already are here for philosophical reasons that are stronger than FOMO or slight technical discomfort, and the platform is already good enough to keep us entertained.

I think thread's number of users was because of how much instagram has made it's name in the social media market. A lot of the users were there because it was new so the larger userbase was already weak. On the fediverse however, you (at least right now) have to put in a little bit of effort to learn about federation, clients, services etc. It's there as an alternative to the bigger players rather than a polished packaged shitbox by them.

As @ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world said, they will be there because of the invested time. I personally like it because it gives me close, tightly knit little communities on the web.