2y ago

Do you think Lemmy is going to cover niche topics like this someday?

I swear I'm not trying to promote Reddit, I'm a refugee as many of us here, I just saw this video linked on r/Save3rdPartyApps and it amaze me that many people used Reddit for niche stuff.

So far Lemmy has been great for me, it really scratches the Reddit itch, using Thunder, Voyager, Jerboa and Connect for Lemmy has been a godsend for this site to me (yeah I cycle them all lol) but it is hard for me finding "less popular content".

I know we are not supposed to lurk to keep improving this site it is hard to stop lurking ngl, I am trying to be more active as many of us do.

Some weeks ago Lemmy wasn't even a shadow of what it is today, but I wonder if it is gonna get as big to cover those niches that people like.

55 comments

Definitely. It's going to take time though, since we're directly competing with all those pre-existing specialty subs over there, which complicates things a little.
- I hope the Fediverse can make a way to see reachable from search engines, I think that'd help.
  
  If our threads become the ones people reference to they will be.
  
  Kbin doesn't require javascript and since they federate with lemmy they will get all the search engine traffic.
- The beauty of it is that "Lemmy" doesn't have to get big all by itself.
  I'm commenting this from kbin.social.
  As more people join the fediverse we are going to see more niche instances of lemmy, kbin, all kinds of things. And those niche communities are going to create niche content.
  I had never modded before in my life but when I joined the fediverse I made a community for what I want to see, because the fediverse is exciting and I want to be part of what we are doing here. I bet lots of people feel like this!
- I'm starting to see it already. Even just a month ago, most niche subs were nonexistent. Some are popping up now, albeit with very little engagement
  
  Yea it's great to see. I think we'll probably have most big triple A game communities running in a few months. Not at reddit-levels of engagement certainly, but they'll be useful spaces. Enough population to answer specific gaming questions, which is the real hook that pulls people in.

Think of Lemmy in 2023 as Reddit in 2005-2007. Reddit didn’t become the Reddit we loved (until a couple of months ago) in a flash.
- Even with the wariness of Meta's entrance into the fediverse, Threads gives it legitimacy and spreads awareness. So many people on reddit were saying the fediverse was confusing and that it wouldn't catch on or appeal to the average user. Threads can change that perception, even if the various lemmy instances don't federate with Threads, people will be aware of the existence of other servers, of the technology, and be more willing to branch out.
- But Flash was depreciated a couple of years ago...
  There is even a movie this summer about someone trying to go back in time to before the Flash was depreciated.
  </s>

Lemmy is going to start with the “major” subs e.g. your meme communities, news subs, major hobbies etc.
Then as time goes on we’ll have points where people start to branch out to niche communities because the mainstream communities are too generalised. That’s when we’ll start to see explosive growth.
Lemmy won’t “win” overnight. It will be a gradual and years-long process, but it can be worth it in the end.
- Yes this likely the best growing scenario, I'm so excited to be here to witness it now.
  
  Meta's Threads could just be like a nuke over all of this niceness we have now. Will be very interesting to see.
  All those normies that hardly even know what a server is.... I don't expect them to care about being nice.

My dude, be the change you want to see. Start the community, curate what you want to see there, set some ground rules, and people will join you. I guarantee your interests are shared with others.

Yeah it's tricky. I don't want to start a niche community cause i don't want to be a mod, but i guess maybe the best thing to do is start the community i want, pin a post saying "mods wanted", and post it to !newcommunities@lemmy.world
- Yeah, that seems like a nice idea.
- Do it! It's honestly not as scary as we think, especially if you start small.
  I didn't want to be a mod, but I realised the community I was posting to had a moderation policy that would turn it into not-what-I-hoped-for so I started my own.
  It only has 10 subscribers and I'm miles away from the 90-9-1 rule kicking in but it's not stressful at all so far.
  
  What is that rule? For every 90 readers there are 9 commentes and 1 contributor?

It will take time. It took Reddit 16 years to get 500 million active users. But Reddit is crap compared to how I remember it back then (2007-2009). I have the utmost confidence that Lemmy will cover niche topics.
- Yeah it’ll take time and trying to force it won’t work. What people tend to forget is that Reddit started out small with no user-made communities.
  The first few subs were kinda generic but concentrated users in one place and bolstered discussion.
  What I see a lot of here is people trying to recreate modern Reddit but without allowing for the growth that got them there. Resulting in lots of empty communities and overall a lack of interaction since users are spread apart.
  It’s like when DC tried to copy what Marvel was doing without building up their cinematic universe. They jumped straight to that Justice league movie and we all saw how that went.
- Reddit pre-digg invasion was the best. After Digg a lot of bad actors got involved and gave reddit the bad reputation it has today.

It's not just reddit, and it's not just lemmy. It's just important that we have a space to share information with eachother free of commercial interests.
But yeah beautiful vid. Almost cried at the ending.

omg this is like me with hotsauce. I found that subreddit a long time ago, and it was just so filled with awesome recommendations and reviews. There’s one on lemmy (just created I think) and people are slowly creating content on there. So I guess there’s hope!

A lot is probably just because of the sheer volume of people over there, whatever the interest was, there'd be plenty of people who were really into that thing. I miss subs like r/whatisthisthing and r/tipofmytongue that worked because just by exposing it to so many people, there was a good chance of coming across someone who was actually familiar with it already.

Even Reddit was not niche enough for some things. Like a proper street photography subreddit.
- https://uploadstarmaccom.blob.core.windows.net/uploads/2020/03/asphalt.jpg
  Unnngh
  
  Hahahha, I had to go back and look at my comment to appreciate your response. 😂

I really hope so so I can finally ditch Reddit and Twitter for good. I've got two local sublemmys I created that I'm trying to grow, but it doesn't seem like there's enough of a userbase right now to support local communties.
- Yeah, I can see this being frustrating as you are engaging directly with them but they just don't deliver :/

If bots don’t end up an overwhelming issue, maybe. The internet has overwhelmingly changed between the formation of Reddit and the formation of Lemmy. Novel issues and solutions will form something new.

Bit off topic, but I love this video lmao
- This was the best commercial Reddit never made.
- Not off topic at all, I liked it too, despite I think is a bit cringey 😅

Part of the problem is that we need to draw people here. Creating communities is great, but the user base won't grow if we're just talking to ourselves.

This is so very true. How do we get that knowledge out of Reddit as it is at risk there? Maybe all that AI data lifting/scraping will help.

It took 7 years for that post to get to that guy. It's gonna take some time but patience and asking alot questions is needed. (and also alot of subcommunities)

If Lemmy continues on the path it’s on it will get there, but this is a long path.
Think 10 years minimum before we start to see maple syrup level niche.
Rome wasn’t built in a day.

!nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Of course, you can always start one yourself.
- Yeah, I have seen many created but they are not active by any means, it requires engagement and "work" to keep them alive.
  
  Tell me about it. I have two, my own and one I got nominated as mod for, plus an additional foster mouth I'm feeding. ;-)

Just saying that you can still use that other site without them seeing a dime
Google your problem. Get the url.
teddit.net/r/(insert after /r/ in reddit link)
There are also scripts and Firefox extensions you can install that automatically do it for you.
- We just need a robot to read reddit and then generate what threads could have existed
  
  Eh... There's several bots that are ripping content from that site with seemingly good intent in the interest of "populating the fediverse."
  It's more spammy than anything else, and I don't really want this place to become a bot infested hellscape like the place I left.

55 comments