I think there will need to be a re-invention/ re-write before the ‘real’ lemmy happens.
The issues around discovery, identity and communities being attached to a server, and how this impacts the math of the networking aspect of the whole concept are really what is preventing Lemmy from not only beating social media like Reddit, but representing a major improvement. The project has grown enough to make that kind of re-investment of time more palatable, but as lemmy currently stands, the protocol is in the way.
- People who came here expecting a monolithic Reddit 2.0 will either leave for the hot new thing or centralize themselves on a few major mega-instances.
- Smaller instances will be their own communities (in the general sense) and those that are similar enough will form “neighborhoods” (not in a defederation sense but in an unofficial “hey we talk between each other quite a lot” kinda ad-hoc sense)
- There will be Lemmy forks (or several completely new software) that’s explicitly aimed at the above mentioned smaller instances
- Think of Glitch or Hometown over on Masto, or Akkoma
- In a defederation sense, there will be a large and complex venn diagram of instance connections as instance admins take stances between reddit-style free-for-all and safer spaces (and yes, the occasional completely freeze-peach instances that’ll get defederated from both)
- Quite a few smaller instances will defederate or otherwise limit communication (assuming the options will exist) from above mega-instances as they’ll be extremely lax on moderation to not lose the Reddit free-for-all audience.
TLDR: Just look at the microblogging side of the fedi.
I hope the people who came here for the first one leave instead of making mega instances. We don’t need that nonsense here.
The way I see it there are 2 paths forward for Lemmy. Without at least one of these scenarios occuring it seems unlikely that we’ll get back to a level of natural growth.
- Reddit starts fucking up again. If this happens it’ll probably be because of or sometime around the IPO so be on the lookout for that.
- We start getting significant user growth from other fediverse platforms, likely Mastodon. These users already understand how federation works and are actively looking for a lot of the features that Lemmy has to offer on their existing platforms. I think the way to get there is primarily through topic dedicated instances springing up as professional groups find Mastodon does not truly fit their needs. One recent example of this is links.esq.social which is a brand new currently unfederated instance for lawyers and legal professionals.
I already love it here, no notes 😅
I guess if i had to make a prediction, maybe a significant chunk of the whole network will migrate over to Veilid protocol? Probably not, just throwing it out there
Lemmy.world federates with Threads and becomes the new reddit. Most people stay on it anyway since it has all communities and it’s still better than reddit used to be.
Ads are introduced since big instances now needs to be funded due to their size. The ads will be federated and there will be discussions about how everyone must support this model because instance admins need to pay their bills.
An alternative to Lemmy comes along without ads. It’s smaller but works in a similar way. People who cant stand ads move there instead.
There will be a lot of fragmentation in the Lemmyverse. Users can’t stand seeing opinions they don’t support, so they will move to instances with lots of blocking and rules that support their own views.
pssst points
your LW hate-boner is showing again
This is hate now? :) lols.
You’re in every thread bashing them as if they were women on your workfloor.
I think they are gonna be OK, don’t worry. :)
Why would we split over ads, wouldn’t instances and users just block the ads but keep everything else?
Depends on how it’s done. If ads are just regular posts, it’s impossible to separate them from normal content. Maybe they could be blocked by blocking the bot posting the ad… I don’t know how this would work. Guess we will see.
Uhg, you don’t even want to know my opinion
Its all startrek memes isnt it?
🤣
Well now I do
Lol 🤣 Oh man, alright. The Fediverse is a giant farce. Wolf in sheep’s clothing.
"ItS JuSt LiKe EmAiL "
-_-
Gimme a break.
Everything will turn into little Eco Chambers (as we are seeing) because everyone will constantly defederate.
Pretty much destroying the whole reddit-type experience that we’re all looking for and came here to get.
There’s too many people who are admins and moderators that are self obsessed and narcissistic and think that hosting a Lemmy server makes them the next Elon musk somehow.
You’re not. You’re a sociopathic self-obsessed psycho eating Doritos in your basement thinking that you’re in charge of something important that will change the world.
This is getting to their heads and breaking instances off, isolating them, causing the user to have to make 16 different accounts so they can access information scattered all over a bunch of servers that is the awesome thing we call the 'fediverse ’
Sorry about the rant.
Anyway, there’s too many people who want the ‘power’ to control other instances and regulate what ppl see. There’s nothing convenient about it, and to me it seems like the more it goes on there’s just going to be added steps, setup, protocols, and other bs and hoops the users are going to have to jump through ( like filling out a fucking personality questionnaire just to join their goddamn server.)
Just be able to even use a website/s where you are not even in charge of what you get to see and who you interact with.
That said, the whole idea of the fediverse just seems like a bunch of bs setup so that a few people can feel powerful and play ‘admin’ and ‘moderator’
It’s really Juvenile and ridiculous in my opinion.
Go have a look at their Matrix chats. I’m being serious with you here all they talk about is Def Federation Banning users blocking users limiting users content that they can see. That’s all they fucking talk about. Just no thank you I’m good
Everything will turn into little Eco Chambers (as we are seeing) because everyone will constantly defederate.
I think when users can block instances themselves, defederation will hopefully become less common and less talked about
Alice is still angry because everyone defederated from exploding-heads
I think your rant is incredibly on point. However, I also think the reality of the modern internet is bots, state level disinformation campaigns, and truly bad faith shitlords who are just there to ruin the experience for everyone else.
but this point:
This is getting to their heads and breaking instances off, isolating them, causing the user to have to make 16 different accounts so they can access information scattered all over a bunch of servers that is the awesome thing we call the 'fediverse ’
Is exactly why in its current state, this isn’t going to work.
Thank. You make incredibly good points. How long until you throw the fediverse out of your routine?
How long until you throw the fediverse out of your routine?
I won’t be. Its this or nothing for me. I’ll be working to make it what it needs to be.
I gotchu. Oh really??? You’re a developer? Go on watcha gunna work on
Admittedly not a techie person, so anything on that side of things I can’t speak to at all, but on the political side of the fence (politics is what you’re describing) it seems like we’re in the nation state building era of the fediverse. Lines are being drawn, borders created, and rules invented. I think it’ll take some time for the dust to settle, but eventually we’ll probably end up with several super large (relatively, anyway) instances, run by major players, probably corporate, and a bunch of little servers that are forced to either be niche communities unto themselves (think Cuba) or effectively vassal states of the larger instances (think Micronesia) or run by one of the larger ones, but semi independent (think Guam).
But honestly, I still think that’s better than the alternatives. That sea of fediverse Cubas is just recreating forums in a new way, and I’d love to get back to that. And even if there are massive corporately run instances, it seems like you’ll still have way more freedom than you currently do under the meta/reddit/Twitter climate. (With that caveat that I do not know things about tech, so maybe not?)
But no, despite lemmy being a reddit lookalike, or Mastodon being twitteresque, none of these are replacements for those. They’re their own thing, that will evolve and become more and more distinct as time goes on. Hopefully anyway. I still like it here way better than Reddit, even aside from my personal feelings about open source software, political bullshit surrounding rich people and corps. I like the climate here, there’s plenty of content, and I feel like I can have actual conversations again (like this one!) Instead of just me being baited by someone looking for karma like on reddit. Yes, I hope Reddit dies, and yes, I came to lemmy from reddit, but even if neither of those were the case, I still think it’s nicer here, and that the model has potential. Again, I don’t know shit about tech. For all I know this isn’t super scalable. But from the view point of instances as states instead of email, I see it being pretty expandable. We just have to figure out how to prevent America from nuking anyone. :p
