this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
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Fediverse

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A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, Mbin, etc).

If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to !moderators@lemmy.world!

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This is not going to be a blogpost about "Why do people still use Reddit instead of everyone moving to Lemmy?". I noticed that even with Mastodon users, who already understand and like the advantages of decentralized platforms, the usage of Lemmy is extremely small, and more people use Reddit. Most of them haven't even heard of Lemmy. To be fair, the Reddit usage also seems to be fairly low.

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[–] percent@infosec.pub 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

If I had to guess: the culture here seems unusual, and unwelcoming — sometimes even hostile — to diverse opinions (i.e. people who aren't similarly unusual).

I haven't met many people IRL who would fit in here. For some visitors, that's okay (I don't fit in here, myself), but I think most people would just move along and forget that Lemmy exists.

Being federated, Lemmy is technically capable of being more diverse. It's a bit ironic that it still ended up being like this.


Also, some images don't load. I just ignore those, but still people might be put off by broken UX

[–] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 6 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

People have lots of excuses for not using Lemmy. If I had to come up with one, I would say first impressions. The design / UI is not the greatest. It works, but it’s not the greatest.

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 1 points 1 hour ago

What would you consider "the greatest"?

[–] Auth@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

I think there are a lot of people who would use lemmy and enjoy using lemmy but just dont know about it. As an old reddit user I found the whole thing a bit confusing at first but after a few days it was fine. Lemmy is leagues above other reddit alternatives.

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

For something to be popular, you have to turn it on and you're using it.

That will always be the biggest issue.

[–] Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I kind of like this level of people as lemmy is less saturated and that's a good thing. Quite often when I was on reddit you'd look at a thread and everything that can be said has been said, so there's nothing new you can add.

I find myself commenting on lemmy a lot more because it's not saturated and that pun hasn't been done, the perspective hasn't been provided, the counterpoint to another comment hasn't been commented etc.

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

Im glad bots dont use lemmy as they do reddit.

[–] sanitation@lemmy.today 0 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

https://lemmy.world/post/51345527.

Basically this. Quadruple moderation on lemmy is stupid.
Reddit agents easily ban content and active contributors

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 8 hours ago (2 children)
[–] illi@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 hours ago

Oh, hi Odysseus.

[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 7 hours ago

No. You're just some guy.

[–] sanitation@lemmy.today -2 points 2 hours ago

Quadruple moderation.
Moderation is waay waay worse on lemmy

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 9 hours ago

Nobody used reddit for a long time as well

Until people did

Lemmy feels like reddit around 2009

[–] darthsundhaft@piefed.social 3 points 6 hours ago

They keep blocking me on VPN. I do NOT use Reddit. I can browse stuff on VPN but I can't post. Piefed hasn't started doing that, least not the instance I use. May change in the future...

[–] blackberry28@sh.itjust.works 10 points 9 hours ago

Because there is no advertisement for it? Thing is, if you don't go actively looking for a Reddit Alternative, chance is you will never have heard of Lemmy. At least, that was the case for me.

[–] dontbelievethis@sh.itjust.works 8 points 8 hours ago

Because there are a bunch of people on here that have a problem when you don't have the shit of the world on your mind 24/7.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 15 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] nimisnimi@lemmy.ca 10 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

100% of online respondents have confirmed they have access to internet.

[–] kestrel7_7@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago

99% of non-lemmy users give up right before they start using lemmy

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

Hidden from Google search results

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 11 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I was on Reddit a long time, it wasn't always huge. Usenet forums before that. I like following topics, not people, and like hosting communities built around topics but would hate to have "followers" of myself personally, that sounds hellish. So never used Facebook, etc, and don't even love Mastodon, really.

But apparently this is a minority view?

[–] Aceofspades@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 hours ago

I'm with you. I also come from the Usenet days and much prefer to follow topics over people.

I do have some web forums that I visit from time to time but those have even less traffic than Lemmy.

I don't use Reddit at all now, so Lemmy is pretty much the only option for this style of topic based content. The ability to follow hashtags on Mastodon is kind of nice too. Unfortunately, people spamming unrelated hashtags on their posts can still be a problem.

[–] scytale@piefed.zip 9 points 11 hours ago

Lemmy, reddit, and other forum type websites are primarily text based. Microblogging and social media are short form and have plenty of pictures and videos, which catches and retains the attention of users more. Their algorithms are also more intense and curated compared to say reddit’s front page which is more generalized to all its users. Forums mean you have to spend time reading and typing while you can doomscroll and press a reaction button on social media and microblogging.

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 38 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

"nobody", nearly 50k people.

Asking people on mastodon if they use lemmy also doesn't make much sense to me. I don't use mastodon because it's not threaded, people on mastodon probably don't use lemmy for a similar reason. I'm not sure how many people use both threaded and unthreaded platforms, but it feels to me like the two layouts attract different people.

[–] AmyAye@nord.pub 8 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Then there are psychos like me who use both, and Bluesky, and other social media and have a personal blog.

[–] brianary@piefed.zip 1 points 7 minutes ago

Me too! It's interesting how different they all are.

[–] Chee_Koala@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

Bag 'm and tag 'm folks, get this psychopath out of here. If we allow this, what's next? We'll allow people who use friendica?

[–] Kierunkowy74@piefed.zip 10 points 12 hours ago

2/3 of polled Mastodon & co. users use no link aggregator, neither Threadiverse not siloed ones.

Maybe microblogging is good enough for them?

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 6 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (3 children)

Just gonna throw this out there: Lemmy is a bad and dumb name.

  1. It's a joke about users being lemmings
    • this subtly denegrates the user on every usage
    • this implies the app/product itself isn't that serious and sounds kinda childish
  2. It's not a satisfying word from a pronunciation standpoint. How many other company or product names can you think of that end with that ee sound? Reddit, Twitter, Threads, they all end with these conclusive consonant sounds. Lemmy sounds like it's trailing off while whining.
  3. At best it conjures up images of rat like rodents.
[–] lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 4 hours ago

Lemmy say that this whole "name dumb" thing is idiotic and completely subjective anyway. You should really go outside and take a look at the names of products people use.

[–] kestrel7_7@lemmy.world 7 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I just assumed it was named after Lemmy Kilmister 😂

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 17 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I don't think you're wrong but I question how much the name really matters. As a name, Reddit is also kind of confusing until someone explains the pun and has historically been seen as weird. Only reason it's not weird now is cause it's popular. The name "lemmy" could just as well see the same happen.

[–] SharkAttak@kbin.melroy.org 14 points 10 hours ago

I agree with you here, if people have no problems using Tiktok or Bilibili or Zalando, Lemmy shouldn't be much worse.

[–] lokalhorst@feddit.org 15 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

The people love algorithms, even if they don't admit that. Reddit and the other platforms invest a lot of money to make people more addicted, and it works. Lemmy on the other hand... well people quickly engage with lemmy.ml and think what the fuck is this place

[–] kestrel7_7@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago

Mastodon doesn’t really have those types of algorithms, it’s all just the people you follow in the order they posted, like Twitter in 2008

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