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10 days after 3rd party reddit app shutdown, Lemmy's top 10 instances combine for a thriving userbase of 234,000
(lemmy.world)
Current breakdown at the time of this post sorted by the number of monthly active users:
- lemmy.world: 101,013 total users / 27,472 active users
- lemmy.ml: 41,972 total users / 4,905 active users
- beehaw.org: 12,270 total users / 4,178 active users
- sh.itjust.works: 17,509 total users / 3,381 active users
- feddit.de: 8,675 total users / 2,935 active users
- lemm.ee: 10,348 total users / 2,751 active users
- lemmynsfw.com: 22,967 total users / 2,310 active users
- lemmy.fmhy.ml: 8,777 total users / 1,704 active users
- lemmy.ca: 5,072 total users / 1,656 active users
- programming.dev: 5,058 total users / 1,242 active users
A quarter million users and that's not even with all the different instances.
Very cool. Just remember folks, don't forget to diversify and decentralize! These other instances have some interesting posts and conversations, and by spreading out we make sure no single instance or community can break the fediverse.
A lot of them also restrict content. There are disadvantages to joining smaller instances, depending on the philosophy of the person who runs the instance. There's even an instance that does not allow communities to be created on its own instance. It will accept applications from people who wish to create one, but they mostly reject applications on their own whim. I think the future of Lemmy as a Reddit alternative will rely on larger, freer instances to be supported well so they have room for growth and change. I have my personal preferences. I don't want content from exploding-heads, but I also want to see the content I want to see. Some smaller instances are restricting that content, almost seeming to be like cults in the making. There are small instances from which it is impossible to find and subscribe to communities from lemmy.world. You have to search for them on a larger instance, then copy and paste in the address bar in your browser. I imagine on a dedicated phone app that would not be possible. So, you can advocate for "spreading out" all you want. In the end, if the goal is to have a strong alternative to Reddit, spreading out is kind of pointless for a lot of users.
I think there are some good reasons for servers restricting content. programming.dev is one of the biggest examples of this by not allowing users to create communities, however if you wish to moderate a community or ask for someone else to moderate one, and it falls within the interests of the server, there is a good chance it will be created. It might be obvious with that server, but it is almost all content relating to software development. It doesn't really make sense to create a community of cooking recipes there, especially since several others exist within other servers. The biggest advantage to this in my opinion is that there aren't dozens of empty communities. If you look at some of the bigger servers that allow users to create their own, there are tons of communities with 0 posts. I think its good that some servers out there allow users to create any community, but it makes sense for many servers to not.
I'm not saying anything about what you're talking about. Of course instances that are field specific would want to block content not related to a particular field of study or profession. programming.dev is a perfect example. Users want to go there to find stuff about programming and nothing more than programming. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about instances where the instance creator is restricting content based on political points of view or sociological themes, in essence creating a sort of cult, controlling what users can see and what they can't see. This type of restriction gives the user a very biased sense of what kind of accurate information is out there. Instances like exloding-heads needed to be defederated from because people on there spread fake news and unreliable information. There is plenty of news that is accurate, reliable, and communicates facts that someone may or may not like based on their point of view, but we need that information to challenge our own points of view. Anyway, I think you know that's what I'm talking about. You just want to nit-pick what I'm saying any way you can. I also wouldn't call programming.dev a small instance. It has over 5000 registered users according to the OP. Stop nit-picking at every little thing people say using examples that have nothing to do with what another person said in a comment. You're trying to start a useless argument. What you're saying has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. Need an example of what I'm talking about? Navigate over to lemmy.one. Now that's the type of small instance I'm talking about. Do I agree with the point of view and mission of that instance? Yes. Do I want to use that instance? No, because it is pushing content on the fediverse through a filter before it arrives to the users' screens and has little to no local content. I want to be free to look at a wide variety of accurate information. You can't do that on some of the small instances.
I wasn’t trying to create an argument, just pointing out not all of those instances are bad. No I didn’t assume that was all of what you meant. To me, it seemed like you didn’t understand the goal of instances like programming.dev. I try to keep in mind that many people are still brand new to Lemmy and wanted to offer counterpoints to your original comment. I wasn’t trying to nitpick your comment, sorry if you got the wrong idea.