I just don't get how Lemmy is going to act as a proper replacement for Reddit.
I understand the basic concept of Lemmy and the Fediverse, and people are touting the concept of it being federated and not centrally controlled, but it is an absolute mess and nobody seems to have an idea about what to do with it.
How are communities going to grow if there isn't at least some form of central management. Other than there being an underlying framework that connects the servers, they're all just doing what they want.
Outside of the underlying framework, there's no 'guidelines' or consistency. The servers have random names, and the main Lemmy.ml is telling people to register elsewhere.
How is this going to bring in a wider audience if people are being directed to lemmy.fmhy.ml, sopuli.xyz, or sh.itjust.works?
What is the purpose of the Fediverse when forums for niche interests already exist on the internet?
Does it make sense to have something like a 'sports' server that has communities for soccer, NFL, basketball, MMA? But then how do you get a consistent naming scheme that lets people know it's part of the fediverse?
Maybe Lemmy could work as a replacement, but it seems like it needs a 'flagship' server with a group of people maintaining it to set an example. Then other servers that cover more specific areas, such as sports, can be set up and potentially work closely with that flagship group.
If this doesn't happen, then I can't see how this doesn't just fizzle out.
P.S. I've also compared two different Lemmy servers and looked at the same post in a community, and there are different numbers of comments on each where they haven't synced up...
I also wanted to post this to the main Lemmy community, but as I had to register via a different server, I'm not able to access that community from the server I'm using for some reason...
I want Lemmy to succeed, I want to be optimistic about it as an alternative to Reddit, but OP is correct, and we need to be honest about this very simple fact:
The Reddit we knew and loved is gone, and that’s a sad, tragic thing, and there likely won’t be a 1:1 replacement for a long time, if ever.
It’s okay to admit to ourselves that this whole situation sucks, because it absolutely does. That doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy Lemmy and other federated things like it, and it doesn’t mean that federation doesn’t have advantages over Reddit, but let’s be honest: most of us were happy at Reddit, using our favorite 3rd party app (like Apollo), and we wouldn’t be here if the admins weren’t happy to kill what we once loved.
All we can do is try to make the best of it.
This reminds me of when digg blew it self up and everyone was complaining that Reddit wasn’t like digg. In time something good enough will come along if lemmy isn’t it. In the meantime I’m enjoying myself here.
I feel the same. At the end of the day the community will migrate as we find the natural succesor be it Lemmy or something else.
Yeah, honestly it seems like there's no real coming back from this, unless the board gets involved and does a complete 180 (and also fires spez, that guy cannot be trusted at all anymore).
How are you supposed to have any certainty that your communities won't just be wiped out or the way you access reddit changed with 30 days notice, which is nowhere near enough time for setting up alternatives, right now most subreddits are going with discord, a bad choice but probably one of the only ones considering a lot of subs already have it set up. I don't blame them for not choosing lemmy, its in beta, with mobile apps in alpha state (iOS not even fully released its on testflight).
Its almost like, I'd rather have a slightly worse experience whilst lemmy is developed and there's less users, than be in constant fear of further features getting removed (mod bots, old reddit, nsfw content)
In the long run, spez doesn't matter. He's the CEO because Reddit Inc. as a business agrees with him; fire him and they'll put another who behaves the same in his place.
Fuck, I even think that keeping spez there is good in the long run. He's scummy and too stupid to not let people notice that he's scummy, so he accurately represents Reddit Inc.'s true values.