I just scrolled through your post history. Many of your posts are items I have read and/or scrolled past absorbing the headline. These have kept me, and others I speak with, informed. So I would say, definitely, and please continue.

Plus, it's much more likely you are reaching humans here.

Yes, people come to Lemmy to look at content and then discuss it, if we don't have content then there's no discussion.

If people don't like what you're posting, they'll let you know through votes on the posts

Yes.

Without posts, what's the point of a forum?

Absolutely. Thank you for all of your posts and this one.

It looks like you've made 61 posts in the last 24 hours. That's a lot of content to provide!

If you're enjoying it, then there's no harm in carrying on. Well done, thank you!

But if you're not enjoying it, then slow down. Stop posting or just post less frequently, whatever it takes to feel like you're doing something you find worth doing. Otherwise, what's the point?

But to your original questions, I don't think you're wasting your time and posting is definitely useful for the Fediverse ecosystem.

Reddit wasn't immediately known as the "front page of the Internet." It took time to build up a reputation and tons of content before it started to get noticed and promoted by search engines.

Lemmy is the same. It's small now, but with enough content, it will eventually become a reference point like Reddit. Every little bit counts.

I do this a lot but in different communities to you. In the bigger communities your post can get lost in the feed, smaller ones they may just not be seen by many. You could try more mid range communities. You like politics and news, so you could try [email protected] where you'll get more interaction. You could also mix it up with [email protected] where people just upvote and posts don't require interaction.

I've found if you post in the right places people start chatting and it's really fun!

I'd like to think that if anything I do makes someone's day a bit better, it was not a waste of time

If you and others are enjoying themselves because of the content, why not?

If you're having fun, yes. If not, no. Do it for you. :)

Yes, absolutely it's useful. Good quality posts that people see is always a useful thing

I do think of it as better to put my stuff here, on a non-corporate forum, than somewhere else. Not sure it rises to the level of doing good or being useful, exactly. Maybe, as I personally find enjoyment on Lemmy, so perhaps I am providing the same to someone else.

No I don't think you are wasting your time.

I think so. If you're a human and you're not a jerk, then interacting on a platform you want to see flourish is a good idea.

It might fail. Any given platform may fail despite many people's efforts to make it work. But that's not a good reason not to try.

Really depends on what you mean by useful. Looking briefly through your post history, it seems like a lot of your posts are news / politics. Are you hoping to use lemmy to educate and change people's perspectives? Because that's quite a different purpose than entertain and distract, or express an inner artistic vision, or grow the fediverse, and so on.

If you can explain what you seek from posting, we can get a better idea of whether it's working or not!

I like some of your posts, no need to feel discouraged.

Usefulness is probably not the right word, though-- haha.

Well, what are you expecting, in return? Are people not replying/reacting to your posts? Maybe you're posting in the wrong community. Really, what are you wanting to see that you're not seeing?

[email protected]

Depends on what the meaning of life is

If you’re creating content, that is definitely useful.

Every little part counts. We all form a community. Imagine if you're in a room and nobody says anything. Now imagine if it's a forum where a few people are chatting on something, that's what makes it engaging.

I also see you posting a lot of gibberish links.

If you think something has worth (to you), everything is worthy.
Is it useful? Maybe for someone.
Assuming it got upvoted, I'd say yes :)

https://youtu.be/VNEZ2Z9Cero

I think David Mitchell puts it succinctly 👌

I think it is

Useful for what? To lure here more users? Mostly useless then because Lemmy almost isn't indexed by web-crawlers. So all your "content" is visible only to those who already are here.

pick a niche and post all about that.

personally I've been looking at the open slot for memes that secretly have penises hidden in them.

I mean, everything holds on human (in a perfect world) interaction, so your contribution is not for nothing. However I can't shake of the feeling that trying to be "useful" online is not a good idea.

In general, whatever you posted will most likely be noticed by at least one other person, whose thoughts will be influenced by whatever you posted. So I guess this is already useful in a way? We should continue thinking, otherwise we are just some kind of a biorobot.

If you enjoy it then do it. Don't do with for an idea that you "should". Don't burn yourself out.

Yes keep at it, reddit wasn't built in a day!

Usually, you need to know where you're going to know whether your motion is taking you there or not.