Is Lemmy actually growing?
Is Lemmy actually growing?
Per the title, is Lemmy actually growing, or will it stagnate and fade into obscurity like many other similar discussion boards?
It seems to be on a healthy state, there are some communities that I would like to have more content. But that's also on me to share and contribute to the communities I would like to see.
Being a bystander on reddit for so long it's a bit difficult to change that mindset, but I'm trying to share a bit more
According to fedidb.org, Lemmy has plateaued at around 43k active users over the past year.
If you ask me, though, it doesn't matter. The Lemmy ecosystem is active and healthy.
I think the premise is flawed. Most of us have been brought up in a world that preaches "if you're not growing, you're dying." That mindset is harmful in a whole host of ways. I have no idea if lemmy is growing or not, but it's quite possible, perhaps even preferable, for a service/site/mom-and-pop shop to be sustainable without unending growth.
To add, a lot of sites that “Fade into obscurity” still have active communities, they’re just not mainstream anymore.
I would prefer if it grew because so many communities are dead. It seems that only political and shitposting instances have constant activity.
For me it’s still not a real Reddit alternative. Which sucks because I’m permabanned from Reddit.
Correct. We don't have need to be growing. 40k mau are nothing to scoff at and is bigger than most other online forums who can feel very busy even with 1000. So long as we're getting as many users as we're losing, we're good. And the continuous enshittification of reddit will ensure there's always people looking for a new home.
This is exactly on the nose. It reminds of articles I've read about the oldest continuously operating businesses in the world. Here's an example: https://www.theceomagazine.com/business/management-leadership/japan-oldest-businesses/
Note that one thing in common between many of these businesses, some of which have been around for nearly 1,500 years(!), is that they are family owned and operated. In other words, they prioritized stability over rapid growth. I feel that there's a huge lesson in this.
Cancer grows continuously. Obviously we should model everything on that.
for a service/site/mom-and-pop shop to be sustainable without unending growth.
I've been on somewhat niche sites which have lasted decades, with waves of people coming in whenever related sites screw up and trickles of people leaving when an alternative community becomes more popular. It's a comfy, slow existence, which works for some communities, but not for ones like this which thrive on diversity and chattiness, rather than really well thought-out replies days apart from each other. On reddit-like sites, time penalizes how high a post goes (unlike a forum where years-long threads are very normal to see on a front page) so there is an inherent benefit in having consistent activity. That doesn't imply boundless growth, but at least sustaining a decent level of activity. We're not chasing ad revenue, growth for growth's sake is not what we want or need.
But with that said, a community with no new visitors can only lose them. That can be a slow process, but it's inevitable. Been there, done that. Again, doesn't imply that pointless growth is a good thing.
That's some serious copium, and the other replies are worse. "If you're not growing you're dying" is bullshit when you control a large portion of the potential market, but not when you're a bit player. Being less popular than a manifestly shitty platform like Reddit is not a flex and not a sign of long-term health.
From the perspective of someone who has been on Lemmy for a few years now, I'll say that the amount of content here has become large enough for me to use Lemmy as a "daily driver" account. I don't miss out on important news or updates by using Lemmy instead of Reddit...in fact it often feels quite the opposite
Yeah I moved during the rexit well before the major one, but when It come around. I don't use anything else.
When I have run out of content on lemmy I touch grass haha
Agreed
👍
I find it kinda concerning how the number of instances is shrinking and number of users per instance is going up. IMO it should be part of the fediverse design to incentivize decentralization to avoid a gmail situation.
Also worrying is that the number of Active Users is trending constant or slightly down, but the number of posts over time is climbing dramatically. To me, this could be a sign of inauthentic behaviour on the rise.
Total post doesn't really tell us much. Of course there's going to be more posts over time. Hell there are Bots that post things. That number is going to go up as long as the servers exist. There could be no human users on here and those are going to go up.
When you sort by monthly active users, this is what you get:
What really jumps out to me is the fact .ml's active users equals the total users. Not too sure what to make of it. I'd assume the mod's delete nonactive accounts after a set amount of time or it's just relatively small based on total users but everyone's visiting at least once a month.
sh.it.heads: "We're number 5! We're number 5!"
(me. I'm probably the only one chanting at this fact)
You're server's #3 when it comes to monthly active users too!
Hexbear? Really?
This is just absolute number total posts and they're a shitposting heaven that existed for 4 years before the big reddit exodus. In monthly posts they're still in the top 10 iirc but not 2nd
after the grad and .ml, hexbear is the oldest lemmy instance it pre-dates federation by over 2 years
It's very active, but also a lot older than many other instances.
Lack of growth does not mean death. That's a capitalistic mindset. It's entirely possible for a community to be sustainable based on the people it has and have no need to grow. Lemmy's not trying to sell a product; there's no need for it to grow. People can join if they want to, and people can leave if they want to.
In terms of actual future prospects, Lemmy seems fairly large to me, and regardless of whether its userbase is growing or shrinking, it would have to shrink by quite a lot to become "dead". Especially as Reddit continues to enshittify, I imagine its userbase will only grow. Hard to find social medias of this nature otherwise; almost all other social media is based around following people, not communities, and also obviously most social media is much more commercialised, less anonymous, much less text-friendly, etc, so link aggregator/Reddit style social medias fill in a niche people want and people who want a social media in this niche will gravitate towards the one they see as the best social media for whatever reason. Maybe Reddit because it's the biggest, maybe Lemmy because Reddit is shit and Lemmy is federated and open-source, maybe their niche alternative because they're part of a specific niche community that uses different software, who knows.
Lemmy doesn’t need to “take off” or compete with Reddit to succeed. Growth for the sake of growth holds little inherent value. Unlike commercial platforms reliant on VC funding to survive, Lemmy thrives on sustainability. What really matters is that there are enough developers to maintain the platform, people to host the server, and users to create content. With these elements in place, Lemmy can continue indefinitely without the need for explosive growth.
In fact, rapid growth could do more harm than good. A sudden influx of users often brings toxic behaviors, especially those migrating from platforms like Reddit. When new users trickle in slowly, they adapt to the existing norms and culture of the community. But when a horde arrives, they risk overwhelming and reshaping the community in ways that trample over its core values. A slow, steady stream of users allows for organic integration, preserving the essence of what makes Lemmy pleasant.
Unlike commercial platforms, open-source projects don’t rely on profit motives to survive. They’re driven by people who directly benefit from their work and are passionate about their vision. When disagreements arise, projects can be forked, allowing different groups to take them in new directions. Even if a project is abandoned, it can be revived by a new team as long as there’s a dedicated community. This flexibility and resilience make open source inherently more sustainable than commercial platforms, which can vanish overnight if funding dries up.
The Fediverse, and Lemmy within it, only needs a large enough user base to remain self-sustaining. I’d argue that it’s already well past that threshold. There’s no rush to grow rapidly. Steady progress ensures the community retains its identity and values, while the open-source nature of the platform guarantees its longevity. Lemmy isn’t just another platform; it’s a sustainable, adaptable ecosystem built to endure. I’m willing to bet that Lemmy will still be around long after Reddit crumbles to dust.
It's rare i see something you post and agree with you, but here i am today
The intelligence of the commentary here certainly isn't
So from what I've seen on Lemmy over the last year is that the quantity of posts and variety of topics feels like it's going up. I certainly enjoy engaging on here.
Will it stagnate? I'm not sure. It might be that the monthly user levels stabilise but thats not the same as stagnate. If people are engaged and enjoying their time then it has value.
My feeling is that Lemmy will slowly grow over time. I don't see it becoming a huge platform like Reddit anytime soon. Its feasible but it feels like for now it will remain niche.
But I also dont want to it suddenly become huge. I was on reddit for a long time and I saw it evolve from being something small and interesting to a behemoth and enshittification to make money. Small is sometimes better, and small or stable in no way means stagnation.
What we really need is for people to put up topic focused sites and promote them as their own thing, not jusy "lemmy". So many specific interests still have very active forums dedicated to them, populated by the kind of people who want to ask queations aboht and discuss the things they have interest or expertise in, but who aren't into things like Reddit.
The fediverse is perfect for places like that. Places where you can focus on your primary interest, but also look over the fence. But all anyone wants to do is put up general interest sites and whine about there being more than one "gaming" forum.
Does it have to?
Maybe a bit would be nice, but I don't want it to grow as big as Reddit got.
I mean it always will grow a little bit over time
I would say yes, because as is the real niche communities dont have the size for larger discussions.
Mainstream communities e.g. about global news already have a decent size. And in many ways it doesn't make much of a qualitative difference if there are 500 or 10.000 predictable comments. But many smaller communities are still mostly propped up by a few power users providing the majority of content which is not ideal for many reasons.
I can be very critical of the fediverse, especially where I want it to do better, but I think stagnation isn't the right word I think 'maintaining' fits more. The fediverse isn't beholden to the grow or die model capitalist projects need and it remains a space that is unique enough to warrant people coming back here, or coming here for certain reasons or content or whatever. I think the model to hope for would be continue maintaining and being ready for when the next group of people get fed up enough to follow through and come here (fediverse in general)
IRC is still around. Usenet is still around.
There's no Google management team or Zuckerberg to pull the plug.
Lemmy can keep going indefinitely.
One thing is that kbin/mbin/piefed/etc...etc... interact with lemmy all the time. Its getting a bit hazy if "lemmy" the platform is growing or if the entirety of the fediverse is growing and others are communicating with the software. We are now seeing quite a few accounts from all over the web interacting with lemmy communities. Is that a new "user" according to the stats? Or is that person a one off from mastodon?
What I a seeing is a general increase in discussion on the platform and increase in posts from all over the fediverse. Which is awesome!
Genuine opinion: Who cares?
Who cares if what we enjoy is changing, at all. It's kinda like if you go to a bowling alley, to go bowling. Do you show up and decide to bowl if there's other people bowling or not? I'm gonna go bowling regardless, that's why I went to the bowling alley.
I feel like the content is becoming more robust and the userbase is keeping up. I think it's going to be super necessary pretty soon down the road.
The quality of discourse is better since a year a go by a lot. Some home brew drama too.
It feels lived in now. The active users engage more. Growth for social media comes in burst anyways.
Reddit needs to do something bad again. Tiktok enjoyer is not the target audience for apub protocol based social media.
or will it stagnate and fade into obscurity like many other similar discussion boards?
well it wouldn't really play out like that, if Lemmy gets overtaken by a replacement (like Mbin, Piefed, or Sublinks), it would be a transition not a death
a big thing we can look forwards to right now is if Pixelfed gets better support to interact with Lemmy/etc communities/groups then we can get a big boost in userbase, even if they aren't using the Lemmy software we'll still be seeing their posts and comments
I wish Mastodon would improve their compatibility with Lemmy too, but they don't seem interested
No and I want it to stay that way