"If you build it, they will come"

I think we all can agree that the main thing holding back the growth of kbin and lemmy throughout all of the reddit drama is a lack of accessibility. Kbin and lemmy both capture the spirit of reddit in their style and userbase, but really lack the ease of use that led to millions of people adopting reddit. Looking at the trends, it is pretty clear that the growth of Kbin and lemmy (in terms of active users) has slowed considerably since the start of the reddit blackouts.

I think this particular wave of hype might be over. But, I am still extremely optimistic that the threadiverse will have more moments in the spotlight going forward.

The sad thing is a disconnect between people's desire to leave Reddit and the accessibility of the threadiverse. I think that, since most of Reddit is mobile nowadays, that this was the major missing ingredient of the last wave of adoption, and might have prevented most users from coming over. The great thing is that it appears that mobile apps will be public in time to ride the next wave!

So what upcoming events will give redditors another push in our direction?

  • The official end of 3rd party apps on 6/30. Not only does this disrupt the user experience for many people, but it'll really make the magnitude of the change tangible for people, especially those who only use reddit for porn, who might be using 3rd party apps but know nothing about the API issue.
  • Reigning in of explicit content. As Reddit moves towards it's IPO, admin moderation on the site is bound to step up in a big way. I can't imagine that the subs featuring extreme and graphic content will be allowed to exist by the end of the year (r/medizzy is an example, but I think that kink-specific subs will be a bigger driver). This is, importantly, going to significantly impact the user experience regardless of the actual platform you use, and may result in another round of protests.
  • Out of touch shareholders and execs. It's safe to say that the average person investing large sums into reddit's IPO won't be internet-dwelling redditors themselves. It's difficult to predict what they might fight for, but it's safe to bet that investors will want to increase the extent to which Reddit is an advertiser friendly, "clean" site. It's hard to say whether or not this will happen, but it is completely possible that investors will push to ban porn site-wide. I can't even imagine how that exodus would compare to the recent one. Reigning in piracy subs is another such possibility.

The point is that the threadiverse's growth is going to look a lot like a set of stairs. Big events on Reddit and twitter will push people towards us in big waves of mass adoption that eventually fizzle out. The most important thing we can do as early-adopters is to spread the word, especially when users are discontent. The other important thing (already happening), is that people use innovative app design to ensure that people have a "soft landing" coming here from Reddit.

/kbin logotype
HidingCat,

The official end of 3rd party apps on 6/30

This isn't enough, I feel. People who leave will also want to use an app, and there aren't many yet. I think it'll also take the arrival of some nice, fully functional apps on Kbin/Lemmy as well.

Sinnerman,

RedReader on Android and something on iPhone will still be available apps for Reddit. However, inevitably Reddit will screw with them out of greed, and by that time the Kbin/Lemmy apps should be done.

The biggest wave will come when Reddit inevitably kills old.reddit.

HidingCat,

Possibly, yea. I think the old guard (like me) are teh ones who'll be most willing to try something like this.

chamim,
@chamim@kbin.social avatar

Reddit didn't always have the user base it has now, it took them years to become big. I don't think we should strive to be as big as reddit.

I was reading the comments to a Lemmy post today (I cannot find it now, to link to it), where users who've been on the platform for a while talked about how the recent wave of signups improved the experience. If the people that are going to switch over at the end of the month continue to a positive influence, that's a win in my view.

WytchStar,
@WytchStar@kbin.social avatar

I've only been here for a few days and I have already seen an improvement as more users have come in, so I believe it.

And in my view as well, it's neither desirable nor reasonable to expect fedi to totally replace reddit either overnight, or yeah, even ever. The result of centralized social media is Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and mental illness, divisiveness, and disinformation. The structure has to change, and so do our expectations.

HidingCat,

Well, this is going to sound selfish and disparaging (because it is in a way), but I don't want this to get too big either; comments section in Reddit really fell off the cliff when it got more mainstream. The smaller and nicher subs weren't so bad but the big ones were terrible. Used to be that the top comment chains in the popular posts were insightful or interesting ones, and those became harder and harder to find as low-quality joke and pun comment chains took over. Or just plain disinformation, like you mention.

WytchStar,
@WytchStar@kbin.social avatar

My reddit account is 14 years old. I remember posting regularly. That stopped about 5 or 6 years ago. It just felt like there was no point. Everything you can think of has already been posted before you woke up in the morning. I even stopped voting. It was like spitting into a hurricane. My last years on reddit were spent trying desperately to curate a better experience.

What I hope for here is that with expansion will in time bring features that will help us maintain control over our feeds, and by extension our sanity.

HidingCat,

Yea, I get that feeling, but the worst feeling is really seeing all the interesting stuff get pushed all the way down. Then you join the discussion there, but it's already all petered out because no one else can see that chain because it's all submerged by the low-quality stuff.

Turkey_Titty_city,

https://backlinko.com/reddit-users

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