Neither of the two points you've made address what I said. Maybe you misunderstood. By "MySpaced" I mean "become irrelevant".
Being open source won't prevent this, sadly. 4 years is still young, but if a critical mass shifts back to Reddit then Lemmy will be considered a failure.
It's time for Lemmy devs to really think about the pain points and how to address them.
It's clear that federation isn't working as intended. Because of that, moderation is too difficult. Defederation has been a major drama for Lemmy, which is only being made more likely given these complaints have not been addressed.
Then there's the curse of choice that makes gaining non-tech users a lost cause. It is leading to extreme fragmentation which makes people drift back to their busier platforms.
These issues need to be addressed or Lemmy will be MySpaced within a year.
I think so. I think younger users trust official branded apps a lot more so actually see the Reddit app as safer. Despite how easy tech people think lemmy and mastodon are, picking a server just isn't a feature to non-tech people - it's an obstacle to getting started.
The lack of content is a problem, but the lack of community feeling is the actual offputting part. Having bots repost things from Reddit kills the organic feeling of interacting with another user.
I'll probably be flamed but I do think having such a homogeneous userbase is negative. It means you don't get a wide array of experiences and viewpoints. People bang on about echo chambers online, but if you are in a club full of old white guys then you're in one!
I'd like think we can make these platforms as welcoming for everyone of all backgrounds, genders, etc, but there's just some things we can't understand without having those viewpoints being represented.
I know Google is a big corpo but its hardly the only reason behind the state of the internet. It is a major factor, but to single out Google when Microsoft and others have played just as significant of a role is odd.