Lemmy will never reach 1 million active users.

This gets posted so often, and it's always so tone deaf.

I don't want Lemmy to become Reddit. I don't care if it gets huge. I'm content now. If it grows it grows, if it doesn't it doesn't. I left Reddit - why would I want it to become that here?

It's a five day account, that basically became active an hour ago...

Probably the same person who just keeps making new accounts to say the same thing.

It happens weirdly often
- The technocrats want nothing more then to cast FUD on to federated platforms. Mastodon worked in their favor when it meant getting people away from right wing Twitter but no doubt they'd find a reason to turn on it later. Expect news reports about harmful misinformation spreading through federated sites.
  
  I would be surprised if the establishment wasn't doing stuff like this.
- I think you're right... Probably why I recognize the name!
The federated nature means that instances and users can break away from other instances that turn toxic. The current structure is very centered around the home instance with federation being more of an SSO that uses the page of the home instance as a client.
No one mentioned reddit here, what does the userbase size have to do with reddit?
- It's obvious. Lemmy is a self-described Reddit clone. The only comparison to Lemmy with at least 1mil users is Reddit. More users means a culture closer to Reddit. I like lemmy because it's smaller. I've gotten to know a few users. I even recognize your user, I'm pretty sure we've interacted before. Bigger is not always better.

Upvote for unpopular.

I like the vibe here. More users = more content, which would be nice. But more users = more assholes.

I watched cool niche subs on reddit get ruined over and over again as the reddit effect filtered assholes in and decent people out.

My feed is exclusively whatever has been posted in the past 6 hours. It's enough to keep me engaged for half an hour or so, then I go about my day. It's a pretty good sweet spot. The only thing I miss is the conversation on niche subjects, but even that allows me to return to the more old school method of finding specific sites for those niches. For example, I still keep up with what's happening in Brony circles by visiting www.fimfiction.net and www.equestriadaily.com as there is basically zero pony content on Lemmy.
I agree with the vibe, here, I'm a R-refugee as well. I am.able to receive all of the news I was getting when I was lurking over there.

I'm starting to see mastodon pick up with more local media meaning we may get more content with less users.

Maybe we start a /c/wouldbenice for these feature requests. But more users doesn't equal better

Do we need it to? Who are we racing?

I agree, so I downvote. Lemmy doesn't need a million users. Part of the appeal is that it's smaller and more intimate than the site which shall not be named.

The downside means fewer eyes on questions and less content on niece communities.
- True, though I'm not sure how important the presence of nieces is in the overall health of Lemmy.

It's a wrong way to view it. It doesn't have to reach 1 million active users on its own. The whole point of it being federated and using ActivityPub protocol is that it CAN be compatible with any other project that shares similar values. Lemmy is still very young and missing a lot of features, but the underlying protocol makes the data portable even if functionality is not built-in yet.

People also said Mastodon will be empty after the anger about Twitter will subside, but it managed to keep it ~1 million people after its peak of 1.8m. Fediverse should grow on its own pace and not be compared to for profit social media companies. Unlike for profit companies which need a big number of people to join for investors not to leave and keep investing to stay alive since they make 0 profit, Fediverse is self-sustaining.