Was there even a mass exodus? I largely avoid Reddit now, but I do kind of doubt that they’ve been hurt in any meaningful way by all the protests and people leaving…

    • @[email protected]
      1•1 year ago

      The unwinding of network effects in Reddit or starting of a networking effects positive feedback cycle in Lemmy is only important if you believe that having a massive number of user (not just tens or hundreds of thousands of people, rather tens of millions or more) like Reddit is a good thing.

      I’m not so sure of that.

      Was it really so great when your voice was drowned in an ocean on voices, you would never see the vast majority of stuff written by others because there was just so much stuff there and you spent most of your time wading through mud to find a few gems here and there?

      Personally, I’m fine with the size the Fediverse has and it having a more natural growth rate.

      Lemmy feels a lot like the old days in places like Usenet rather than the cacophony of modern for-profit social media (except perhaps the politics forums here, which are often tribalist rage-wars) and personally I like it.

      I didnt even move over because of the Reddit API changes per-se (which didn’t affect me at all) - I just tried Lemmy out when the demonstration took of in Reddit, tought “this is nice” and simply stayed and didn’t went back to Reddit (it was a surprisingly clean cut, so I suspect I didn’t feel satisfied there).

        • @[email protected]
          1•1 year ago

          I don’t think you can presume that the whole point of federation is for networks to grow: this system design is actually well suited for reducing the control of States (if they takeover or close one down, the rest of the network is just fine) as well as allowing lots of small entities and individuals to run servers, all adding up the level of capability that would take a lot of money for one single entity to maintain - in other words it makes it possible for lots of independent entities and individuals to run social media outside the control of nation states.

          Resilience in the face of state interference is an explanation that makes sense as the protocols were apparently designed by lefties with anarchist tendencies.

          Maybe size was also the intention, maybe not, but that’s not something somebody can firmly use as a foundation for an entire argument about how the Fediverse should match what ultimatelly are your personal preferences about and pattern of use of social media.

          That said, it seems to me we just have a difference of opinion on what we would like to have here, so neither of us can claim to be right on this.

          Let’s agree to disagree ?! ;)