So since the mass-exodus from Reddit we can see that the total amount of active users has gone down rather heavily: https://i.imgur.com/MeQok2F.png
This can seem a bit sad at a first glance. Where are we heading? But one has to remember that back during the summer many of us created several accounts to settle at an instance, there were also problems with spam-bots of various kinds.
So active users in itself is actually not that interesting. At least not the comparison with the peak. Instead we can watch the total amount of posts, how is that looking?
Well it's steadily going up actually: https://i.imgur.com/i3Vse7Y.png
Though the increase has gone down slightly. This number however is influenced by other parameters as well. There are several reposts bots and such that mass-post to different instances. But it's definitley a good tell it's not going down.
Another interesting factor is comments: https://imgur.com/hWT8xvF
The amount of comments per month has gone down, but not by all that much. A 10% decrease from the top or so. What's interesting here is that the decline has plateaued, which could indicate that the userbase has settled and become somewhat consistent. This is great news.
All in all, it seems like Lemmy has settled into a rather comfortable spot, with a decent amount of users, posts and comments. That is very slightly decreasing. Ideally we'd like to see this trend reverse, and perhaps that might happen naturally with due time when things have settled even more. For Lemmy I'd reckon the growth will look a bit like this. Whenever Reddit does something horrific (and it will happen more), we'll see a mass-exodus with more users over here. Then it'll decrease for a bit, settle and hopefully we can rinse and repeat. Anyway - that's some irrelevant thoughts from me on the subject.
Just wanted to post these rather good statistics!
You're right. Reddit was the same way during the Digg migrations. The first wave took place with the HD DVD code fiasco migration when some people setup their first accounts. It was a couple years later when Digg upset users again that the final big wave occurred. This is a great place for Lemmy as growing pains get worked out and development catches up to much needed moderation functionality.
As Cole and I say in reference to lemdro.id, it's a marathon not a sprint! !android@lemdro.id has also been steadily increasing in active and subscribed users.
Yeah I expect the same thing to happen. Reddit's gonna keep pissing users off as they race for their IPO and so this will happen in waves. And when Reddit goes public and needs to start MAKING BIG NUMBER GO UP, the site is really gonna change and people are not going to like it.
Meanwhile the Fediverse and its lack of profit motivation, algorithms, and advertising is going to start looking real appealing.
It might take years. But it does feel like the Fediverse is holding on and has what it takes to make it on the long term.
We will see another big one when old.Reddit.com dies, too. Some people just want a list, man! I don’t necessarily want to load every post and picture to scroll by…
Yeah I completely wiped my account and don't post anymore but I still browse the site because it's just a hard resource to replace overnight. But if they kill off old.reddit it's gonna be a lot easier to wean off of it. Killing Apollo has cut my usage back considerably as I no longer use Reddit on mobile.
So I think killing old.reddit will be a big step as will them seeking more invasive ways to pump revenue. It's all downhill for that site from here out as far as I see it.