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There is a drop in monthly active Lemmy users (from 65k to 57k) (lemmy.fediverse.observer)
submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
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It is probably due to a number of people stopping using their alts after some instance hopping.

Also a few people who came to see how it was, and weren't attracted enough to become regular visitors.

Curious to see at which number we'll stabilize.

Next peak will probably happen after either major features release (e.g. exhaustive mod tools allowing reluctant communities to move from Reddit) or the next Reddit fuck up (e.g. removing old.reddit)

Stats on each server: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list

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[–] 2 points 3 years ago (25 children)

A slower growth trend would be "natural" as you describe it, but a drop in users should only be concerning at this stage, especially as the platform is still so young. Even a small amount of growth is still growth but a decline in users means more people are leaving the platform than joining it.

Again, you're pulling explanations out of thin air - go ahead and prove that those users are switching to kbin over lemmy, use some data to back up your claim.

Or accept that we have a problem with adoption and as a community we need to fix it.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago (19 children)

    User growth hasn't stopped, check this.

    Again, you’re pulling explanations out of thin air - go ahead and prove that those users are switching to kbin over lemmy, use some data to back up your claim.

    I said "Some users may switched" - I claimed nothing.

    Or accept that we have a problem with adoption and as a community we need to fix it.

    Lemmy is improving, mobile apps are in rapid development, and seems good (never used one so am judging from what I've heard), communities are being created everyday. No one in this thread said that Lemmy is in perfect state and we have nothing to improve. If you have some ideas on how can we make Lemmy better, you're free to share them.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (18 children)

    User growth hasn't stopped, check this.

    Are you referring to the graphs here? The ones that show:

    • Monthly Active users in decline
    • Daily active users in decline

    Those graphs?

    Sure, 6-monthly users is increasing (and plateauing) and people sure are posting more comments, but those graphs do not paint a good picture and do not suggest positive user growth.

    No one in this thread said that Lemmy is in perfect state and we have nothing to improve.

    That's exactly what some people in this thread are claiming. Every time someone says "Good, less users is a good thing", they're saying nothing needs to change because that's what they want. I am saying that is not the case and I stand by that.

    Lemmy is improving, but it clearly needs to go a lot further to start attracting users again.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (17 children)

    Sure, 6-monthly users is increasing (and plateauing) and people sure are posting more comments, but those graphs do not paint a good picture and do not suggest positive user growth.

    Yep, this graph basically shows that growth hasn't stopped, it was just overtaken by the drop in Lemmy users. I will return to it a bit later.

    Every time someone says “Good, less users is a good thing”, they’re saying nothing needs to change because that’s what they want

    Only if it's taken outside of context. Okay, I admit I shouldn't claim "No one said that", but in many cases people aren't celebrating the decrease of Lemmy users. For example, OP clearly stated:

    It is probably due to a number of people stopping using their alts after some instance hopping. Also a few people who came to see how it was, and weren’t attracted enough to become regular visitors.

    From my perspective, this decline is a consequance of a rapid growth during last months: people were promised with a new reddit, but they got lemmy, with its quirks and issues. Of course, some people weren't satisfied with it - and when protests on reddit came to an end, they could finally abandon lemmy for the platform they were actually interested in.

    That's why I pointed out on the fact user growth never stopped - Lemmy's still attracting new users, just people who weren't interested in lemmy in the first place decided to leave.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (11 children)

    Side note: OP did originally have the phrase "And that's good for lemmy" (or something very similar to that) in the title of this post, but they've since edited it. I don't know of a way of recovering what the original title said to be certain but it's worth knowing this, as that's a lot of the context behind this thread around why people (like myself) are decrying those that are saying it's a good thing.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Yeah, I saw it too. Seems like OP wanted to bait to read the post text and not just scroll away with dreadful thoughts.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

    I did edit it, because I was getting too much negativity on the "good thing" part of the title.

    I did not even intended as bait, I meant it as "it's a good thing that the community will stop thinking that everything is fine and actually reflect about how to fix it". That was my first comment with the post, but it got buried into the rest of the reactions.

    Later threads like https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/2243096 and https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/2241408 seem to show that some people are indeed becoming aware of the issues.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    It seems the discussion moved to a doomy direction though. People kinda just read the title and then say that lemmy is basically dead and we should move back, etc.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    I did edit it, because I was getting too much negativity on the "good thing" part of the title.

    I did not even intended as bait, I meant it as "it's a good thing that the community will stop thinking that everything is fine and actually reflect about how to fix it". That was my first comment with the post, but it got buried into the rest of the reactions.

    Later threads like https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/2243096 and https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/2241408 seem to show that some people are indeed becoming aware of the issues.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (3 children)

    You're not the only one who saw that. I saw it too. In fact, that's why I clicked the link.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    I did edit it, because I was getting too much negativity on the "good thing" part of the title.

    I did not even intended as bait, I meant it as "it's a good thing that the community will stop thinking that everything is fine and actually reflect about how to fix it". That was my first comment with the post, but it got buried into the rest of the reactions.

    Later threads like https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/2243096 and https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/2241408 seem to show that some people are indeed becoming aware of the issues.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    growth hasn't stopped, it was just overtaken by the drop in Lemmy users

    Can you explain to me how this isn't a complete contradiction? How has growth not stopped while users have? That doesn't make any sense to me. Are we saying there's user growth or not?

    That's why I pointed out on the fact user growth never stopped - Lemmy's still attracting new users, just people who weren't interested in lemmy in the first place decided to leave.

    I'm trying to understand your viewpoint here, but I'm just not getting it. Overall users are in decline, that's not good. Sure, I have no doubt that we're still attracting new users but we're still losing users as well - more than we're attracting. We're at a net loss of users and that's not good.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    You said Lemmy can't attract new users at this point, I provided the evidence new people are this getting into the platform, it's just that statistics is overrided by people leaving us since reddit became usable yet again. It's one-time event though, just like reddit exodus was, so user growth will be positive again soon.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    You said Lemmy can't attract new users at this point

    Can you please point out / quote where I said this?

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Okay but how do we fix it? Are we allowed to solicit on reddit just to get people here? Are Lemmy users even getting the word out about Lemmy?

    This isn't exactly the easiest platform to use. The term "instances" is probably intimidating to the average reddit user who has to do nothing more than type "reddit.com" to get to where they need to be.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago*

    I think the honest answer is to become active and solicit on Mastodon. Those users are not only far more open to the pitch of "Mastodon but with threaded discussions" but are far more legitimately engaged and active than Reddit users.

    EDIT: Not to mention they can literally participate from their existing accounts. Super easy to get your foot in the door.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Okay but how do we fix it?

    I think you answer your own question -

    This isn't exactly the easiest platform to use.

    I quite like lemmy, but the barrier to entry is far too high to enjoy the platform. Assume your user doesn't give a flying monkies about federation and things like that, they just want the memes and content - if we can crack that, we might be onto something.

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